SPN FIC - Finding Wednesday (Part 1 of 2)
The list is up, the secret's out -- so I can post my contribution to spn_summergen. This is a gift for
domina_malfoy, who requested: (1) the Wee!chesters staying at Pastor Jim's after John is hurt on a hunt, and (2) Sammy or Dean finding a kitten or a puppy and wanting to keep it. The result was this -- summer 1987, Blue Earth, Minnesota. A little boy who's trying awfully hard to be grown up so he can help his Dad ... and not quite getting there, at least in his own mind.
That was stirring up trouble, Dean figured. He'd decided that while he was sitting there alone: that he was eight years old, and he could do what he could do, and he couldn't do what he couldn't do. Getting PO'ed because he couldn't drive, or go out with Dad went he went after the bad things, or make decisions about where they went or when - that wouldn't accomplish anything. He was a kid.
CHARACTERS: Dean (8), Sammy (4), John, Pastor Jim, OFC (Mrs. Lundquist)
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 12,400 words
FINDING WEDNESDAY
By Carol Davis
They weren't very far from Pastor Jim's when Dad stopped the car. Dean figured the stop was because Dad had to go to the bathroom (or maybe Dad figured Sammy had to go), but all Dad did was pull off the road into a little rest area and turn off the engine. Then he leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. A little bit at a time his hands slipped away from the steering wheel until they were resting in his lap.
"Dad?" Dean said.
"Hmm."
"Why are we stopping?"
Dad opened his eyes halfway. His mouth moved like he was trying to smile. "I need to rest for a little bit."
"Now?"
"Just for a little bit."
"But we're almost there."
"I know that, son. But I need to rest for a few minutes."
That made sense, sort of; Dad had been out on a job almost all night, and he'd only slept for a little while before he got up this morning and said they should head for Pastor Jim's. He hadn't even taken his clothes off, or pulled down the covers. He just laid on top of the bed.
"You and Sammy can get out if you want," he said. "But stay close to the car."
The rest stop wasn't a real rest stop. It didn't have any candy or soda machines, and no bathroom. All that was around was a couple of beat-up old picnic tables, a big trash barrel, a fireplace thing for cooking hot dogs and burgers, and one of those signs that told about historical stuff that had happened. Dean had packed up the food from the kitchenette at the motel, so they had plenty of snacks and some sodas, but still, it would've been nice to be at a rest stop that was more interesting than this one. Maybe one with a candy machine.
"Go on," Dad said. "Stretch your legs. Stay close. You hear me, Dean?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right, then."
Then Dad shut his eyes again.
"Dean?" Sammy said from the backseat.
Puzzled, Dean pushed open the car door and slid out, then opened the back door for Sammy. He closed both doors gently, thinking maybe Dad wouldn't like the noise if he slammed them. They weren't in any real rush to get to Pastor Jim's, he figured, so there was no reason they couldn't stay here for a little while. He could figure out something to keep Sammy occupied.
Sammy had been coloring in the backseat and still had a crayon in his hand. "How come we're here?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Is this a place?"
"Everyplace is a place."
"Yeah, but what's here?"
"Stuff."
"Is there aminuls here?"
"No."
"Is there snakes?"
Where Sam had gotten this whole "snake" thing from was a mystery to Dean. A quick look around told him that yeah, there was a pretty good chance there was a snake or two someplace nearby, but it wasn't likely to be a thirty-foot python that would wrap itself around Sam and squoosh him to death.
"No," he said.
"Is there stuff that can bites me?"
"No, nothing's gonna bite you. We're just gonna play."
"Why?"
"Because we are."
Inside the car, Dad was slumped a little lower in the seat. Maybe he'd gone to sleep, Dean thought. He hadn't said much since they'd left the motel, and he hadn't smiled at all, or played any music. He'd turned on the radio one time, but when what came out was a guy talking about government and the president and stuff, he'd turned it back off, frowning like he was PO'ed at what the guy had been saying. He was really tired, Dean figured. That little bit of sleep he'd gotten this morning wasn't enough. It'd been more like a nap than real sleep.
"Dad?" he said softly, through the open window. "Are you okay?"
Dad didn't answer. His hand was curled around his ribs like he was trying to protect them, but maybe that was because the steering wheel didn't give him much room to move his arms around and having his hand that way was just comfortable or something. Still, he didn't look like he felt good. Tired, Dean thought. He's just tired.
"Dean?" Sammy said. "What're we gonna play?"
"Whatever you want."
Pastor Jim called Sammy's expression his skeptical face. He'd been wearing it a lot lately. "There's nothin' to play."
"Yeah there is."
"There's not."
If Sam got worked up enough, he was gonna start yelling. Or crying. Or worst of all, he'd throw himself down on the ground and pitch a fit. There was almost never a time when that was any fun at all, and it certainly wasn't going to be fun way out here in the middle of nowhere, with Dad trying to sleep a little bit because he was tired of driving.
"We can…we can…investigate!" Dean blurted out.
"Vessagate what?"
Fireplace, Dean thought. He'd heard Dad and Uncle Bobby talking once about some stuff they'd found in the ashes in a fireplace. Bones, mostly, and pieces of an old book. This fireplace wouldn't have anything cool like that, but maybe there'd be something worth looking at. With Sammy still wearing the skeptical face, Dean led the way over to the picnic area. He was poking around in the thick layer of ash with a stick when Sam grabbed his sleeve.
"There's aminuls," Sam insisted.
"Knock it off," Dean said, trying to shake himself out of Sam's grip. "It's probably a squirrel or something."
"Isn't."
"What do you think it is, a bear?"
Sam's eyes got wider.
"It's not a bear, you dope."
"Deeeeeeean."
Sammy's lower lip started to quiver and he made fists out of both his hands like he was going to punch something. Probably, it would be Dean. Stick still in hand, Dean heaved a sigh and looked past his little brother toward the car. He'd been stuck trying to invent fun for Sam a lot of times before, and sometimes he'd succeeded and sometimes he hadn't. A couple of times he'd had to do what Uncle Bobby called Talking him down off the ledge. Once, he'd had to clean up after Sammy had puked all over the couch. This occasion didn't seem like it was going to involve any puking, but you could never be sure about something like that, especially where Sammy was concerned. "Fun" could end up in disaster in a whole bunch of different ways.
"There's no bears," Dean said firmly.
"Then what's that noise?"
He canted his head and listened. Only an idiot - or a little kid - would think that sound was coming from a bear. It was a funny, squeaky sound. A squirrel or a chipmunk, maybe, or some weird kind of bird.
"Are you gonna vessagate?" Sam asked.
"No."
This was really not the best time to go poking around in the bushes and maybe get lost, not with Dad all worn out and still needing to drive a couple more hours to get to Pastor Jim's. If Dad didn't feel good, the driving wouldn't be easy for him, but he'd have to do it - that, or stop somewhere with a phone and call Pastor Jim to come get them. That had happened once before, and had ended up with Dad and Pastor Jim yelling and swearing at each other. They'd yelled and swore so much that Dean had figured they'd never be going to Pastor Jim's again.
I could drive, he thought. If I was bigger. I could help Dad.
The funny noise definitely wasn't a bear, but if it was something that could bite, and Dean got bitten - well, that would put the icing on the cake, for sure. Dad would be mad, Sammy would probably cry, and Dean would… Well, Dean would have holes in him.
Still, investigating would kill some time. It'd give him and Sammy something to do while Dad slept a little bit longer.
"Dean?" Sammy persisted. "Are ya?"
"Yeah," Dean sighed. "Okay."
With Sammy tagging along a couple of steps behind, Dean made his way into the brush at the far end of the picnic area. He had the stick in one hand and in the other, a loose brick he'd pulled off the fireplace. This still didn't seem like the best idea in the world, but he wasn't going far. He'd only go a little ways. And if the noise seemed like it was coming from something that could bite, he'd run back out. Or go slow. Sometimes it wasn't good to run, he remembered Uncle Bobby telling him. That could make the thing want to chase you.
Sometimes it was best to go real slow.
"What if it's a snake?" Sam asked.
"It's not a snake."
"What if it's a big snake?"
"I'm gonna kick your butt, Sam, don't think I won't."
They seemed to be getting closer to the sound when all of a sudden, it stopped. Whatever it was had heard them coming, Dean figured, and was laying low, being as quiet as it could be so they wouldn't find it.
But he was a hunter, right? Just like Dad. He was. He could definitely find it.
"Sssssshhhhh," he told Sam, finger pressed to his lips.
Then the sound started up again. It was like nothing Dean had ever heard before, a funny Eeeeeeeeeeeee kind of a sound, over and over, like Eeeeee Eeeeee Eeeeee. It was…demanding, sort of. Like Sammy had sounded, back when he was a baby and he wanted to be fed or he was wet or cold or something.
It could be something bad - but Pastor Jim had told Dean once that there was a lot more natural stuff going on in the world than unnatural. Chances were, the thing making the noise was nothing Dad would want to hunt. Nothing he would say needed to be killed.
It sounded scared.
He wants his mama, Dean remembered one of the church ladies saying, back when Sam was a baby and had been crying for a long time, all red in the face and waving his fists in the air. The sound was like that. Like whatever it was wanted its mama.
Which could be a trick - a way to lure him in. Some of the bad things did that. He'd seen that in movies, and Dad had told him: Don't ever be fooled.
He wasn't going to be fooled. He was eight years old.
And a hunter.
Sam stood there watching him as he looked around. He'd look for one minute, he told himself. Just one minute, and if he didn't figure out what was making that noise he'd take Sam back to the car and wake Dad up and then they'd head on to Pastor Jim's. Dad could get some real rest, they'd have something good for lunch and watch some TV and everything would be fine.
"What is it, Dean?" Sam asked.
"I don't know."
"Why's it makin' that noise?"
"I said I don't know."
That did it. Sam's lower lip started to quiver.
"Quit it, would you?" Dean moaned. "Don't do that."
"You said you were gonna fiiiiiiiind it," Sam howled.
Maybe it would be a thirty-foot python, Dean thought as he pushed his way through the bushes, some of which scratched his arms and dragged at his pants. If it squooshed him to death, he wouldn't have to listen to Sam's whining any more. He could definitely put up with some squooshing in return for some peace and quiet.
"Is it a rat?" Sam asked when Dean came back out with the thing cradled in his hands.
"No," Dean said.
Way back in the bushes, half-buried in a mess of old dry leaves and sticks, he'd seen a little flash of white. If it hadn't been white, he thought, he might not have found it, even though it kept making that bleating baby-noise. It had settled down a little bit now that he was holding it, but it was trembling. It was scared, for sure, and it definitely wanted its mama. But where the mama was, he had no idea.
"What is it?"
"It's a cat."
"That's not a cat."
Yeah, it was. How it'd gotten out here all by itself, Dean couldn't even guess, but it was definitely a cat. A tiny, scrawny white kitten with a smudge of gray on its forehead, eyes tightly closed and mouth wide open.
"What're you gonna do with it?" Sam asked.
"I don't know," Dean said.
It was starting to get hot out. The scratches on his arms were starting to itch. There were probably mosquitoes out here, which would make Sammy start to whine again.
Dean was definitely done "playing."
Cradling the kitten against his chest, Dean ushered Sam into the backseat of the Impala, then got in up front alongside Dad. The sun had shifted while he and Sam were outside, and it was hitting Dad's face in a way that made him look pale. He was frowning, too, like he was either dreaming about something bad or he felt kind of sick.
"Dad?" Dean said quietly.
Again, he didn't get an answer.
"Dad," he said again, and nudged Dad's arm a little. This time Dad mumbled something, and a second later opened his eyes. "Maybe we should go?" Dean suggested. "When we get to Pastor Jim's, you can get some sleep. That would be good, huh?"
If I was bigger, he thought, I could drive. I could do it, and Dad wouldn't have to. He could sleep in the back until he feels better.
Even though he knew how to drive the car - Dad had showed him one day, in a parking lot - it was really hard to do, because his legs weren't quite long enough to reach the pedals, even with the seat pushed all the way up. But he could grab the wheel and hold the car steady if Dad got shaky. He'd done that once before, and it wasn't exactly something he was looking forward to trying again; the car had started to go off into a ditch before he was able to push Dad's foot off the gas. But he could definitely manage it. It was part of learning to drive, he figured. In a different way. The Winchester way.
"The hell's that thing?" Dad murmured.
The kitten lay trembling between Dean's cupped hand and his t-shirt. Dean shrugged an apology to Dad, which seemed to be enough of an answer, because Dad didn't say anything more.
"The snakes could eat it," Sammy announced from the backseat.
As if it understood, the kitten made one last bleat of protest, then trembled itself into silence against Dean's chest.
~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, there was yelling and swearing when they got to Pastor Jim's. Dad did most of it at first, but then Pastor Jim got wound up. He wanted to make sure Dad was okay, he said, and Dad said (real loud) that he was completely f-ing capable of figuring that out for himself, thanks very much now get the hell away and let him sleep. Pastor Jim yelled something back about Dad being a stubborn ass and ungrateful and if he - Pastor Jim - had any common sense, he'd make Dad go sleep in the car and not let him sleep in a house that came from the goodwill of the community and Dad could sure as hell stand to take some lessons in goodwill and how to accept the kindness of others.
It would have been sort of interesting to listen to, if the yelling didn't give Dean a weird feeling deep in his chest.
After about twenty minutes of the yelling and swearing, Pastor Jim came back downstairs. He was kind of red in the face and breathing like he'd run a whole marathon up there in the guest room.
"Is Dad okay?" Dean asked him quietly.
"I don't think your father's been okay since the Sixties."
He sounded like he was still mad. Like he didn't want Dad in the house at all. "We could go stay at a motel," Dean ventured. "If you want. We could stay at that motel over by the Dairy Queen. But I don't think Dad can drive there."
But instead of saying yes, or I'll get somebody to drive you, Pastor Jim sighed and reached out to ruffle Dean's hair.
Then he noticed what Dean was holding.
"It's a cat," Sammy offered helpfully.
Frowning, Jim moved in closer and leaned down to look. "That's a very little cat. Where did you boys find that?"
"In the woods."
When Jim shaped his hands around Dean's, Dean surrendered the kitten. The expression on the pastor's face made him feel even worse than he had a minute ago. "Is it gonna die?" Dean asked with a fluttery feeling in his stomach.
"Well…I hope not."
"We saved it from the snakes," Sammy piped.
The cool thing about Pastor Jim was, even though his regular job was mostly just talking to people and telling them how to honor the Lord and that kind of stuff, he actually knew a lot about a lot of things. Dean wouldn't have guessed that he knew anything about taking care of animals - especially tiny baby animals - since he didn't have any pets, and his "flock" was people and not sheep, but for the millionth time Pastor Jim surprised him.
"Go find Mrs. Lundquist," the pastor told Sam. "Be quick, okay? Tell her I need her to go to the vet's. Hurry up, now."
Then he walked into the kitchen and, holding the kitten against his chest, rummaged around in his junk drawer until he found an eyedropper. He ran some water into a cup, then sat down at the kitchen table, filled the dropper with water and nudged it into the kitten's mouth.
"I thought cats drank milk," Dean frowned.
"Cow's milk isn't good for them. And a kitten this small can't handle it. It needs some water for now. Mrs. Lundquist is going to go to the vet's and get some special food. That's what we'll feed it."
"Like baby formula stuff?"
"That's right," Jim smiled.
"It won't die, will it, Pastor Jim?" Dean asked in a small voice.
Jim didn't answer him right away. After he'd told Mrs. Lundquist what he needed from the vet, he gave the kitten three more droppers of water, then told Dean where to find a shoebox and some old washcloths. When the box was all fixed, Jim put the kitten in there and set the box on his lap, then went back to giving it water with the dropper and stroking its fur with his other hand.
"We'll do our best, Dean," he said finally.
That didn't seem like much of a promise.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dean reached into the box and stroked the kitten's side with the flat of one finger. It twitched a little, then settled down again. It hadn't made that funny demanding noise for a while, which seemed like both a good thing and a bad thing. The fact that it didn't open its eyes made him nervous, although Pastor Jim said that that was natural, that it wouldn't open them until it was a little older and even then it wouldn't be able to see much.
They had to feed it every two hours, Mrs. Lundquist said when she got back from the vet's with a package of special kitten food.
"I can do it," Dean told her. After all, he'd found the cat; that made it his responsibility. But neither Mrs. Lundquist nor Pastor Jim seemed to believe he could handle the job.
Dean kind of didn't believe it either.
"Tell you what," Pastor Jim told him. "We'll take turns."
While Dad slept - and snored - upstairs, Dean and Sam sat in the living room watching cartoons on TV and Pastor Jim worked on his sermon in his study. The boys had the shoebox on the couch in between them and for once Sammy didn't bounce and jump and jiggle all over the place. He sat quietly, and every so often he would reach over and pet the kitten gently, the way Pastor Jim had showed him.
Every two hours, Dean and Pastor Jim took turns giving the kitten some formula with the tiny baby bottle the vet had provided.
"Are you sure he's okay?" Dean asked late in the afternoon.
"It's a she."
"I meant Dad."
Jim thought about things for a minute, then scratched at his head and tried to come up with a smile - the kind grownups always used when they were trying to be reassuring. "He bruised his ribs. That's something that hurts pretty bad for a while, especially if he coughs or moves around the wrong way. But yes, he'll be all right."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"If he yells again, you won't kick us out, will you?"
"No, son. I won't kick you out."
"He was just yelling because he doesn't feel good."
Jim paid some serious attention to feeding the kitten for a while, then he said, "There's a lot more to it than that. But you boys don't need to worry. Nobody's kicking you out, no matter how much your father decides to vent his spleen."
Sammy had gone out to the kitchen and was having a snack while Mrs. Lundquist washed the lunch dishes. With the water running, neither Sam nor Mrs. Lundquist could hear anything that went on in the living room unless it was kind of loud; Dean had experimented with that enough times to know for sure. Keeping his voice low, Dean told the pastor, "I wish I could drive."
"You will. In a few years."
"I wish I could drive now. So I could help Dad."
That seemed to bug Jim more than a little, which wasn't what Dean had expected. He sighed, then reached out and rested his hand on Dean's shoulder and squeezed it a little. "You do help him, Dean."
"I don't feel like I do. All I do is little stuff."
"Little stuff adds up."
Grownups said things like that all the time. They seemed to think it answered all of Dean's questions and solved all his problems - but it didn't, not by a long shot. In a lot of ways, it made them worse. But there was no point in telling Pastor Jim that, not when he had Dad and his flock and two boys and a kitten to worry about. And there was no point in telling him because he'd end up saying something else that wouldn't solve a thing.
"Okay," Dean replied, because that was all he could think of to say.
~~~~~~~~~~
They went on taking turns during the night. Pastor Jim made Sammy go to bed upstairs, in his regular bed, but he brought down some pillows and blankets and made up a place for Dean to sleep on the couch, and a place for himself in his big recliner. They put the shoebox on the coffee table, and set up an alarm clock to go off every two hours.
Dean didn't have to help, Jim said. But helping him take care of the kitten was no worse than getting up in the night with Dad and helping him change Sammy's diapers. Dad had always said that Dean didn't need to do that either, that he could just go back to sleep, but it had never seemed right making Dad do all that work himself. "I can takes a turn," Dean had always offered, and Dad had always smiled at him.
Dad hadn't been smiling much lately.
The first night went okay. In a way, it was kind of nice sitting there in the quiet and feeding the kitten. Pastor Jim agreed - in the morning, he said being awake when things were at peace had helped him think of a new subject for his sermon.
"Like what?" Sam asked.
"Generosity. How to give with a loving heart."
That didn't interest Sam much, so he went wandering off to play with his Legos. That left Dean and Pastor Jim together in the living room, watching the kitten bump around inside the shoebox. It was still looking for its mother, Dean figured, or maybe its brothers and sisters. Either way, it didn't seem too upset about being stuck in a shoebox with some old washcloths instead of other cats.
"Pastor Jim?" Dean ventured.
"Hmm?"
"How come… How did it get out there? Where we found it?"
"I imagine someone abandoned it there."
"All by itself?"
Jim gave Dean the look that meant he was figuring out whether Dean was old enough to hear a particular thing. He'd told Dean once that that was what the look meant - and that yes, he'd figured out that Dean was old enough to know that that was what Jim was thinking. He was a smart kid, Jim had told him. Smart enough to handle certain things. Which didn't mean that Jim told Dean a whole lot more than he told Sammy, but a little bit was better than nothing. Because, after all, Dean was eight years old.
"I imagine there were more of them," Jim said.
Figuring out what he meant - all of what he meant - took a minute. Understanding made that weird feeling fill up Dean's chest again. "Oh," he said softly.
"We save what we can, Dean."
"If we had gone there sooner, maybe I could have found the other ones."
"Maybe. But maybe not. You did save this one."
The kitten was all curled up against Dean's hand. It seemed content to sleep that way, like it - she - trusted him. She couldn't see him, but maybe she thought his smell was okay.
"I guess," Dean said.
"Have you talked to your father about keeping her?" Jim asked after a while.
Dean didn't look at him. "He won't let me."
"Are you sure?"
Pastor Jim was one of the least dumb people Dean knew, but like all grownups, every once in a while he could come up with something that was colossally stupid. The trouble was, there was no good way to point out to a grownup how dumb they were.
"Doesn't matter," Dean muttered.
"Maybe you should give her a name."
"What for?"
"Your gift to her."
That was pretty dumb, too. "It's a cat."
"One of God's creatures."
"Then let God name it," Dean sputtered, and went stumbling away from the couch.
A dozen or more visits to Blue Earth had made him familiar enough with the house that he could get from one end of it to the other without really looking, and he did it now, keeping to a more-or-less straight path from the living room to the kitchen and on out the back door. He kept going until he reached his favorite tree, one he could climb like a monkey, with hand and footholds easy to find and a nice thick branch maybe fifteen feet off the ground that he could straddle, back resting against the trunk, mostly hidden from below by a thick network of leaves.
He was alone out there for a while, listening to the wind and the birds and the sound of the radio from the Lundquists' house, the next one over from Pastor Jim's. All he could see of either house was a little bit of the window of the room where Dad was sleeping.
Which wasn't really something he wanted to look at.
"It's going to be a while," Jim said from down below.
"Until what?" Dean muttered.
"Until your dad's ribs heal up. Heaven knows that if he decides he's got to be out of here before that, there'll be no stopping him, but maybe the world will stay quiet this time. Keep itself moving along without the aid of John Winchester."
For a grownup, Jim was a pretty good climber. He picked a branch close to Dean's and settled himself on it like he climbed up into this tree every day of the week. For all Dean knew, maybe he did. It wasn't like the church had any kind of rule against climbing trees. It had rules against other stuff - some of which made sense and some that didn't - but Dean was pretty sure tree-climbing wasn't on the forbidden list.
"It's tough to be in the middle," Jim said after a minute.
"I'm not," Dean replied.
"Too big to be little, and too little to be big."
"I can do stuff."
"But not enough stuff?"
That was stirring up trouble, Dean figured. He'd decided that while he was sitting there alone: that he was eight years old, and he could do what he could do, and he couldn't do what he couldn't do. Getting PO'ed because he couldn't drive, or go out with Dad went he went after the bad things, or make decisions about where they went or when - that wouldn't accomplish anything. He was a kid. And it wasn't like Dad never let him decide anything. The other day, for instance, Dad had let him pick the place where they stopped to eat. The only requirement was, it had to be a place that had hamburgers, because Sammy had decided he would die stone cold dead if he didn't get a hamburger and there was no point in telling Sam he couldn't have something, not when it would result in Sam pitching a fit.
Dean could live really, really well if Sam didn't pitch any more fits. Ever.
"I meant what I told you yesterday," Jim said. "About you being a help to your father. He appreciates what you do - even if he doesn't say so."
Which was pretty funny, because the last time they'd been here, Dad and Jim had an argument over how much stuff Dad made Dean do when it should've been Dad doing it. What exactly Jim meant - what stuff, in particular - Dean wasn't sure, but either way, there'd been swearing that time too.
"Whatever," Dean mumbled.
"You're an excellent big brother to Sam."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Feeling like trading Sam in for the cat?" Jim asked.
He just didn't know when to leave well enough alone. That was the thing about being a pastor, Dean figured: you were supposed to keep hacking at people until they said what you wanted them to say, or felt how you wanted them to feel. "Can I be by myself?" he gritted out. "I just want to be by myself."
He was pretty surprised when Jim said, "Of course you can," and climbed down out of the tree.
~~~~~~~~~~
At dinnertime he told Mrs. Lundquist he'd take the tray up to Dad. He didn't know whether Dad would wake up long enough to eat anything, and eating might hurt his ribs - but he did need to eat something, and Mrs. Lundquist had made him a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, two of Dad's favorites.
When he pushed the door open, Dad was staring up at the ceiling. He seemed okay, not in too much pain or anything, so Dean said, "Hi, Dad."
"Hello, son."
"Are you hungry?"
Dad thought that over for a second, then said, "I think I am, yeah."
Mrs. Lundquist made excellent soup, homemade, not out of a can. This batch was vegetable beef, with nice big chunks of meat. If anything could make Dad sit up and eat something, it was a bowl of Mrs. L's beef soup. And sure enough, Dad started sniffing the air before Dean was halfway to the bed. He shifted around - and that hurt, for sure, because he made a lot of faces in the process - and propped himself up against the pillows, then took the tray from Dean and set it on his lap.
"You ate already?" he asked.
"Uh-huh."
"Did Sam eat?"
"Uh-huh."
Dad just looked at the tray for a second, like he might be changing his mind about eating. Then he gave Dean a smile that only looked a little bit fake and picked up half of the grilled cheese sandwich. "Want to tell me what's on your mind?" he asked, and took a bite out of the grilled cheese.
"I don't have anything on my mind."
"My mistake. Thought maybe you did."
He didn't push any further; he let Dean stand there shuffling his feet against the braided rug while he ate his soup and sandwich. His face relaxed after a few minutes - if his ribs still hurt him, the soup and the sandwich seemed to be good medicine for it.
"I -"
Dad raised an eyebrow.
"Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay."
"I'll be fine. I'm a little banged up, is all."
"How did you hurt your ribs? Pastor Jim said you hurt your ribs."
After another bite, Dad shrugged a little and said, "Fell against a table." He chewed, then sighed. "Got thrown against a table."
"By the bad thing?"
"Pissed-off spirit."
"Oh."
"Don't bounce as well as I used to."
That was supposed to make Dean laugh, so he made a little huff. Not a real laugh, because the joke wasn't that funny. "Did you get rid of it?"
"I did, yeah."
"I wish -" Dean stopped, but Dad raised an eyebrow, encouraging him to keep going. It took some serious studying of the braided rug before Dean could do that. "I wish you could kill the bad stuff without getting beat up."
Dad had to do some studying too, but of his soup, not the rug. "That's the thing about fighting the good fight," he said quietly, and he was smiling, but it looked a little sad. "It's not ever easy. You get knocked around. Sometimes you get knocked around a lot. But it's for a good reason. You know what I'm saying?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good man."
That feeling was in Dean's chest again, and it was so tight that he felt like saying Dammit!! like Dad would. If it kept up much longer it was going to make him cry, and that was definitely one thing he did not want to do in front of Dad - or in front of Pastor Jim or Mrs. Lundquist or Sam or anybody. He was eight years old, dammit, not a little four-year-old kid like Sammy, and Pastor Jim trusted him to understand things.
Dad did too, he figured.
But some days he didn't want to understand things. Didn't want to understand them at all.
"I have to go to the bathroom," he said, and hustled quick out of Dad's room. He didn't go into the bathroom, though. He went back downstairs, out the kitchen door, and ran far enough that when he did start to cry, no one saw it.
~~~~~~~~~~
There was more yelling the next morning. It didn't start out that way; Pastor Jim was just talking to Dad in a normal voice. They didn't seem to know Dean was in the room next door, looking for some comics to take outside and read, because they were talking about school and whether or not it was necessary for Dean to stay in the same school all the time, and how things would go once Sam started kindergarten in the fall. Really, Pastor Jim was doing most of the talking. Dad didn't say much other than, "Uh-huh."
Then Jim made a mistake. He said something about responsibility. And Dad said, "Don't tell me what my responsibilities are. I know damn well what my responsibilities are."
It got worse from there.
That afternoon, Dean missed feeding the kitten two times. He stayed outdoors, reading his comics (one of them he read three times), because Pastor Jim and Mrs. Lundquist were in the house and they were the grownups, and just because he'd found that cat didn't mean he had to take care of it for the whole rest of his life. He didn't feel bad about not feeding it, not for one second, and nobody came out to tell him he should go in the house.
The house was another thing they yelled about. Pastor Jim said Dad should show him some respect in his own house. And Dad said, "It's your house now?" Said he thought it belonged to the f-ing community.
For two guys who were supposed to be friends, they yelled a lot. And swore a lot. But Jim had only thrown Dad out once that Dean could remember. The rest of the time he walked away. Sometimes he'd shut himself up in his study, and sometimes he'd walk over to the church, but when he finally came back he didn't seem to be mad any more, just quiet. It had something to do with his being a pastor, Dean supposed. With that kind of a job you couldn't go around yelling at people and throwing them out. You had to do that turn the other cheek thing. Had to let the other person win, in a way. If Jim had some other kind of job, he might haul off and punch Dad, or threaten to shoot him, like Uncle Bobby did sometimes. Dad did that to people: made them want to clean his clock. But he didn't mean it. He really, really didn't mean it.
Nobody who meant to be a sonofabitch would cry the way Dad had that one night when he thought Dean was asleep. It'd been a long time ago, back when Sammy was still wearing diapers. He'd gone outside the motel room but he hadn't shut the door all the way.
"Mary," he'd said while he was crying. "Oh, God, Mary."
Being sad that way had to be worse than getting bounced off a table. You could get better from bruises and cuts and even broken bones.
You might not ever get better from knowing a bad thing killed somebody you loved.
Dean went inside, finally, at dinnertime.
"I helped Pastor Jim," Sammy told him, and you would think it was some huge thing, instead of just feeding a stupid cat.
At nine o'clock he went upstairs to go to bed, in his regular bed.
Stupid cat, he thought.
He slept for a while. When he woke up, he could hear Dad snoring in the other guest room. Sam was in his regular bed next to Dean's - or on top of it, anyway, because he had pushed all the covers off onto the floor and all he had left was his pillow. Without thinking much about it Dean got up, lifted Sam's covers up off the floor and arranged them the way they were supposed to be, tucking them carefully around Sam's shoulders.
Other than the noise Dad was making, and the ticking of the old-fashioned clock out in the hallway, the house was quiet. Outside was quiet too, which wasn't unusual; nothing much ever happened in this part of town, and there wasn't a whole lot of traffic. The only time it ever really got noisy was when the kid two houses down from the Lundquists turned his music way up, and that never lasted long.
Pastor Jim had asked Dean once if he would like to live in Blue Earth.
It was a dumb name for a town, Blue Earth. Both he and Sammy had wondered if, a long time ago, the dirt had actually been blue back when the place was named, or if any of it still was blue. Pastor Jim had told them yes, and took them down by the river, where the mud did look sort of blue if the light hit it the right way. Not a real blue, but a sort-of blue. That had been a good day - Jim had told them all about the Native Americans and the old names of some of the places and things. After that he'd shown them the statue of the Jolly Green Giant. Any place that had a 55-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant could be a decent place to live, Dean figured. Plus, of course, it had Mrs. Lundquist's soup.
But staying?
Dean had never once asked Dad if they could stay someplace. For a few days, sure, but not for good. Not forever.
It would have only made Dad yell. Or worse, it would have made Dad look sad.
Careful not to make any noise, Dean opened the door and crept out into the hallway, heading for the bathroom. He'd gone a few steps when he realized there was a light on downstairs. He went ahead and used the bathroom, and got halfway back to his and Sammy's room before he stopped. The floor was a little cold under his bare feet, and what he wanted more than anything right then was to run back to bed and snuggle in where it was warm.
But there was a light on downstairs.
One hand sliding along the railing he crept down the stairs and found Pastor Jim sitting in his recliner with a book lying open on his lap. At first Dean thought he was asleep, but when he started to cross the room to look into the kitten's shoebox, Jim said quietly, "It's nice to have some company."
So he stayed in the living room with Jim and the kitten the rest of the night.
Part 2...
domina_malfoy, who requested: (1) the Wee!chesters staying at Pastor Jim's after John is hurt on a hunt, and (2) Sammy or Dean finding a kitten or a puppy and wanting to keep it. The result was this -- summer 1987, Blue Earth, Minnesota. A little boy who's trying awfully hard to be grown up so he can help his Dad ... and not quite getting there, at least in his own mind.
That was stirring up trouble, Dean figured. He'd decided that while he was sitting there alone: that he was eight years old, and he could do what he could do, and he couldn't do what he couldn't do. Getting PO'ed because he couldn't drive, or go out with Dad went he went after the bad things, or make decisions about where they went or when - that wouldn't accomplish anything. He was a kid.
CHARACTERS: Dean (8), Sammy (4), John, Pastor Jim, OFC (Mrs. Lundquist)
GENRE: Gen
RATING: PG
SPOILERS: None
LENGTH: 12,400 words
FINDING WEDNESDAY
By Carol Davis
They weren't very far from Pastor Jim's when Dad stopped the car. Dean figured the stop was because Dad had to go to the bathroom (or maybe Dad figured Sammy had to go), but all Dad did was pull off the road into a little rest area and turn off the engine. Then he leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. A little bit at a time his hands slipped away from the steering wheel until they were resting in his lap.
"Dad?" Dean said.
"Hmm."
"Why are we stopping?"
Dad opened his eyes halfway. His mouth moved like he was trying to smile. "I need to rest for a little bit."
"Now?"
"Just for a little bit."
"But we're almost there."
"I know that, son. But I need to rest for a few minutes."
That made sense, sort of; Dad had been out on a job almost all night, and he'd only slept for a little while before he got up this morning and said they should head for Pastor Jim's. He hadn't even taken his clothes off, or pulled down the covers. He just laid on top of the bed.
"You and Sammy can get out if you want," he said. "But stay close to the car."
The rest stop wasn't a real rest stop. It didn't have any candy or soda machines, and no bathroom. All that was around was a couple of beat-up old picnic tables, a big trash barrel, a fireplace thing for cooking hot dogs and burgers, and one of those signs that told about historical stuff that had happened. Dean had packed up the food from the kitchenette at the motel, so they had plenty of snacks and some sodas, but still, it would've been nice to be at a rest stop that was more interesting than this one. Maybe one with a candy machine.
"Go on," Dad said. "Stretch your legs. Stay close. You hear me, Dean?"
"Yes, sir."
"All right, then."
Then Dad shut his eyes again.
"Dean?" Sammy said from the backseat.
Puzzled, Dean pushed open the car door and slid out, then opened the back door for Sammy. He closed both doors gently, thinking maybe Dad wouldn't like the noise if he slammed them. They weren't in any real rush to get to Pastor Jim's, he figured, so there was no reason they couldn't stay here for a little while. He could figure out something to keep Sammy occupied.
Sammy had been coloring in the backseat and still had a crayon in his hand. "How come we're here?" he asked.
"I don't know."
"Is this a place?"
"Everyplace is a place."
"Yeah, but what's here?"
"Stuff."
"Is there aminuls here?"
"No."
"Is there snakes?"
Where Sam had gotten this whole "snake" thing from was a mystery to Dean. A quick look around told him that yeah, there was a pretty good chance there was a snake or two someplace nearby, but it wasn't likely to be a thirty-foot python that would wrap itself around Sam and squoosh him to death.
"No," he said.
"Is there stuff that can bites me?"
"No, nothing's gonna bite you. We're just gonna play."
"Why?"
"Because we are."
Inside the car, Dad was slumped a little lower in the seat. Maybe he'd gone to sleep, Dean thought. He hadn't said much since they'd left the motel, and he hadn't smiled at all, or played any music. He'd turned on the radio one time, but when what came out was a guy talking about government and the president and stuff, he'd turned it back off, frowning like he was PO'ed at what the guy had been saying. He was really tired, Dean figured. That little bit of sleep he'd gotten this morning wasn't enough. It'd been more like a nap than real sleep.
"Dad?" he said softly, through the open window. "Are you okay?"
Dad didn't answer. His hand was curled around his ribs like he was trying to protect them, but maybe that was because the steering wheel didn't give him much room to move his arms around and having his hand that way was just comfortable or something. Still, he didn't look like he felt good. Tired, Dean thought. He's just tired.
"Dean?" Sammy said. "What're we gonna play?"
"Whatever you want."
Pastor Jim called Sammy's expression his skeptical face. He'd been wearing it a lot lately. "There's nothin' to play."
"Yeah there is."
"There's not."
If Sam got worked up enough, he was gonna start yelling. Or crying. Or worst of all, he'd throw himself down on the ground and pitch a fit. There was almost never a time when that was any fun at all, and it certainly wasn't going to be fun way out here in the middle of nowhere, with Dad trying to sleep a little bit because he was tired of driving.
"We can…we can…investigate!" Dean blurted out.
"Vessagate what?"
Fireplace, Dean thought. He'd heard Dad and Uncle Bobby talking once about some stuff they'd found in the ashes in a fireplace. Bones, mostly, and pieces of an old book. This fireplace wouldn't have anything cool like that, but maybe there'd be something worth looking at. With Sammy still wearing the skeptical face, Dean led the way over to the picnic area. He was poking around in the thick layer of ash with a stick when Sam grabbed his sleeve.
"There's aminuls," Sam insisted.
"Knock it off," Dean said, trying to shake himself out of Sam's grip. "It's probably a squirrel or something."
"Isn't."
"What do you think it is, a bear?"
Sam's eyes got wider.
"It's not a bear, you dope."
"Deeeeeeean."
Sammy's lower lip started to quiver and he made fists out of both his hands like he was going to punch something. Probably, it would be Dean. Stick still in hand, Dean heaved a sigh and looked past his little brother toward the car. He'd been stuck trying to invent fun for Sam a lot of times before, and sometimes he'd succeeded and sometimes he hadn't. A couple of times he'd had to do what Uncle Bobby called Talking him down off the ledge. Once, he'd had to clean up after Sammy had puked all over the couch. This occasion didn't seem like it was going to involve any puking, but you could never be sure about something like that, especially where Sammy was concerned. "Fun" could end up in disaster in a whole bunch of different ways.
"There's no bears," Dean said firmly.
"Then what's that noise?"
He canted his head and listened. Only an idiot - or a little kid - would think that sound was coming from a bear. It was a funny, squeaky sound. A squirrel or a chipmunk, maybe, or some weird kind of bird.
"Are you gonna vessagate?" Sam asked.
"No."
This was really not the best time to go poking around in the bushes and maybe get lost, not with Dad all worn out and still needing to drive a couple more hours to get to Pastor Jim's. If Dad didn't feel good, the driving wouldn't be easy for him, but he'd have to do it - that, or stop somewhere with a phone and call Pastor Jim to come get them. That had happened once before, and had ended up with Dad and Pastor Jim yelling and swearing at each other. They'd yelled and swore so much that Dean had figured they'd never be going to Pastor Jim's again.
I could drive, he thought. If I was bigger. I could help Dad.
The funny noise definitely wasn't a bear, but if it was something that could bite, and Dean got bitten - well, that would put the icing on the cake, for sure. Dad would be mad, Sammy would probably cry, and Dean would… Well, Dean would have holes in him.
Still, investigating would kill some time. It'd give him and Sammy something to do while Dad slept a little bit longer.
"Dean?" Sammy persisted. "Are ya?"
"Yeah," Dean sighed. "Okay."
With Sammy tagging along a couple of steps behind, Dean made his way into the brush at the far end of the picnic area. He had the stick in one hand and in the other, a loose brick he'd pulled off the fireplace. This still didn't seem like the best idea in the world, but he wasn't going far. He'd only go a little ways. And if the noise seemed like it was coming from something that could bite, he'd run back out. Or go slow. Sometimes it wasn't good to run, he remembered Uncle Bobby telling him. That could make the thing want to chase you.
Sometimes it was best to go real slow.
"What if it's a snake?" Sam asked.
"It's not a snake."
"What if it's a big snake?"
"I'm gonna kick your butt, Sam, don't think I won't."
They seemed to be getting closer to the sound when all of a sudden, it stopped. Whatever it was had heard them coming, Dean figured, and was laying low, being as quiet as it could be so they wouldn't find it.
But he was a hunter, right? Just like Dad. He was. He could definitely find it.
"Sssssshhhhh," he told Sam, finger pressed to his lips.
Then the sound started up again. It was like nothing Dean had ever heard before, a funny Eeeeeeeeeeeee kind of a sound, over and over, like Eeeeee Eeeeee Eeeeee. It was…demanding, sort of. Like Sammy had sounded, back when he was a baby and he wanted to be fed or he was wet or cold or something.
It could be something bad - but Pastor Jim had told Dean once that there was a lot more natural stuff going on in the world than unnatural. Chances were, the thing making the noise was nothing Dad would want to hunt. Nothing he would say needed to be killed.
It sounded scared.
He wants his mama, Dean remembered one of the church ladies saying, back when Sam was a baby and had been crying for a long time, all red in the face and waving his fists in the air. The sound was like that. Like whatever it was wanted its mama.
Which could be a trick - a way to lure him in. Some of the bad things did that. He'd seen that in movies, and Dad had told him: Don't ever be fooled.
He wasn't going to be fooled. He was eight years old.
And a hunter.
Sam stood there watching him as he looked around. He'd look for one minute, he told himself. Just one minute, and if he didn't figure out what was making that noise he'd take Sam back to the car and wake Dad up and then they'd head on to Pastor Jim's. Dad could get some real rest, they'd have something good for lunch and watch some TV and everything would be fine.
"What is it, Dean?" Sam asked.
"I don't know."
"Why's it makin' that noise?"
"I said I don't know."
That did it. Sam's lower lip started to quiver.
"Quit it, would you?" Dean moaned. "Don't do that."
"You said you were gonna fiiiiiiiind it," Sam howled.
Maybe it would be a thirty-foot python, Dean thought as he pushed his way through the bushes, some of which scratched his arms and dragged at his pants. If it squooshed him to death, he wouldn't have to listen to Sam's whining any more. He could definitely put up with some squooshing in return for some peace and quiet.
"Is it a rat?" Sam asked when Dean came back out with the thing cradled in his hands.
"No," Dean said.
Way back in the bushes, half-buried in a mess of old dry leaves and sticks, he'd seen a little flash of white. If it hadn't been white, he thought, he might not have found it, even though it kept making that bleating baby-noise. It had settled down a little bit now that he was holding it, but it was trembling. It was scared, for sure, and it definitely wanted its mama. But where the mama was, he had no idea.
"What is it?"
"It's a cat."
"That's not a cat."
Yeah, it was. How it'd gotten out here all by itself, Dean couldn't even guess, but it was definitely a cat. A tiny, scrawny white kitten with a smudge of gray on its forehead, eyes tightly closed and mouth wide open.
"What're you gonna do with it?" Sam asked.
"I don't know," Dean said.
It was starting to get hot out. The scratches on his arms were starting to itch. There were probably mosquitoes out here, which would make Sammy start to whine again.
Dean was definitely done "playing."
Cradling the kitten against his chest, Dean ushered Sam into the backseat of the Impala, then got in up front alongside Dad. The sun had shifted while he and Sam were outside, and it was hitting Dad's face in a way that made him look pale. He was frowning, too, like he was either dreaming about something bad or he felt kind of sick.
"Dad?" Dean said quietly.
Again, he didn't get an answer.
"Dad," he said again, and nudged Dad's arm a little. This time Dad mumbled something, and a second later opened his eyes. "Maybe we should go?" Dean suggested. "When we get to Pastor Jim's, you can get some sleep. That would be good, huh?"
If I was bigger, he thought, I could drive. I could do it, and Dad wouldn't have to. He could sleep in the back until he feels better.
Even though he knew how to drive the car - Dad had showed him one day, in a parking lot - it was really hard to do, because his legs weren't quite long enough to reach the pedals, even with the seat pushed all the way up. But he could grab the wheel and hold the car steady if Dad got shaky. He'd done that once before, and it wasn't exactly something he was looking forward to trying again; the car had started to go off into a ditch before he was able to push Dad's foot off the gas. But he could definitely manage it. It was part of learning to drive, he figured. In a different way. The Winchester way.
"The hell's that thing?" Dad murmured.
The kitten lay trembling between Dean's cupped hand and his t-shirt. Dean shrugged an apology to Dad, which seemed to be enough of an answer, because Dad didn't say anything more.
"The snakes could eat it," Sammy announced from the backseat.
As if it understood, the kitten made one last bleat of protest, then trembled itself into silence against Dean's chest.
~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, there was yelling and swearing when they got to Pastor Jim's. Dad did most of it at first, but then Pastor Jim got wound up. He wanted to make sure Dad was okay, he said, and Dad said (real loud) that he was completely f-ing capable of figuring that out for himself, thanks very much now get the hell away and let him sleep. Pastor Jim yelled something back about Dad being a stubborn ass and ungrateful and if he - Pastor Jim - had any common sense, he'd make Dad go sleep in the car and not let him sleep in a house that came from the goodwill of the community and Dad could sure as hell stand to take some lessons in goodwill and how to accept the kindness of others.
It would have been sort of interesting to listen to, if the yelling didn't give Dean a weird feeling deep in his chest.
After about twenty minutes of the yelling and swearing, Pastor Jim came back downstairs. He was kind of red in the face and breathing like he'd run a whole marathon up there in the guest room.
"Is Dad okay?" Dean asked him quietly.
"I don't think your father's been okay since the Sixties."
He sounded like he was still mad. Like he didn't want Dad in the house at all. "We could go stay at a motel," Dean ventured. "If you want. We could stay at that motel over by the Dairy Queen. But I don't think Dad can drive there."
But instead of saying yes, or I'll get somebody to drive you, Pastor Jim sighed and reached out to ruffle Dean's hair.
Then he noticed what Dean was holding.
"It's a cat," Sammy offered helpfully.
Frowning, Jim moved in closer and leaned down to look. "That's a very little cat. Where did you boys find that?"
"In the woods."
When Jim shaped his hands around Dean's, Dean surrendered the kitten. The expression on the pastor's face made him feel even worse than he had a minute ago. "Is it gonna die?" Dean asked with a fluttery feeling in his stomach.
"Well…I hope not."
"We saved it from the snakes," Sammy piped.
The cool thing about Pastor Jim was, even though his regular job was mostly just talking to people and telling them how to honor the Lord and that kind of stuff, he actually knew a lot about a lot of things. Dean wouldn't have guessed that he knew anything about taking care of animals - especially tiny baby animals - since he didn't have any pets, and his "flock" was people and not sheep, but for the millionth time Pastor Jim surprised him.
"Go find Mrs. Lundquist," the pastor told Sam. "Be quick, okay? Tell her I need her to go to the vet's. Hurry up, now."
Then he walked into the kitchen and, holding the kitten against his chest, rummaged around in his junk drawer until he found an eyedropper. He ran some water into a cup, then sat down at the kitchen table, filled the dropper with water and nudged it into the kitten's mouth.
"I thought cats drank milk," Dean frowned.
"Cow's milk isn't good for them. And a kitten this small can't handle it. It needs some water for now. Mrs. Lundquist is going to go to the vet's and get some special food. That's what we'll feed it."
"Like baby formula stuff?"
"That's right," Jim smiled.
"It won't die, will it, Pastor Jim?" Dean asked in a small voice.
Jim didn't answer him right away. After he'd told Mrs. Lundquist what he needed from the vet, he gave the kitten three more droppers of water, then told Dean where to find a shoebox and some old washcloths. When the box was all fixed, Jim put the kitten in there and set the box on his lap, then went back to giving it water with the dropper and stroking its fur with his other hand.
"We'll do our best, Dean," he said finally.
That didn't seem like much of a promise.
~~~~~~~~~~
Dean reached into the box and stroked the kitten's side with the flat of one finger. It twitched a little, then settled down again. It hadn't made that funny demanding noise for a while, which seemed like both a good thing and a bad thing. The fact that it didn't open its eyes made him nervous, although Pastor Jim said that that was natural, that it wouldn't open them until it was a little older and even then it wouldn't be able to see much.
They had to feed it every two hours, Mrs. Lundquist said when she got back from the vet's with a package of special kitten food.
"I can do it," Dean told her. After all, he'd found the cat; that made it his responsibility. But neither Mrs. Lundquist nor Pastor Jim seemed to believe he could handle the job.
Dean kind of didn't believe it either.
"Tell you what," Pastor Jim told him. "We'll take turns."
While Dad slept - and snored - upstairs, Dean and Sam sat in the living room watching cartoons on TV and Pastor Jim worked on his sermon in his study. The boys had the shoebox on the couch in between them and for once Sammy didn't bounce and jump and jiggle all over the place. He sat quietly, and every so often he would reach over and pet the kitten gently, the way Pastor Jim had showed him.
Every two hours, Dean and Pastor Jim took turns giving the kitten some formula with the tiny baby bottle the vet had provided.
"Are you sure he's okay?" Dean asked late in the afternoon.
"It's a she."
"I meant Dad."
Jim thought about things for a minute, then scratched at his head and tried to come up with a smile - the kind grownups always used when they were trying to be reassuring. "He bruised his ribs. That's something that hurts pretty bad for a while, especially if he coughs or moves around the wrong way. But yes, he'll be all right."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"If he yells again, you won't kick us out, will you?"
"No, son. I won't kick you out."
"He was just yelling because he doesn't feel good."
Jim paid some serious attention to feeding the kitten for a while, then he said, "There's a lot more to it than that. But you boys don't need to worry. Nobody's kicking you out, no matter how much your father decides to vent his spleen."
Sammy had gone out to the kitchen and was having a snack while Mrs. Lundquist washed the lunch dishes. With the water running, neither Sam nor Mrs. Lundquist could hear anything that went on in the living room unless it was kind of loud; Dean had experimented with that enough times to know for sure. Keeping his voice low, Dean told the pastor, "I wish I could drive."
"You will. In a few years."
"I wish I could drive now. So I could help Dad."
That seemed to bug Jim more than a little, which wasn't what Dean had expected. He sighed, then reached out and rested his hand on Dean's shoulder and squeezed it a little. "You do help him, Dean."
"I don't feel like I do. All I do is little stuff."
"Little stuff adds up."
Grownups said things like that all the time. They seemed to think it answered all of Dean's questions and solved all his problems - but it didn't, not by a long shot. In a lot of ways, it made them worse. But there was no point in telling Pastor Jim that, not when he had Dad and his flock and two boys and a kitten to worry about. And there was no point in telling him because he'd end up saying something else that wouldn't solve a thing.
"Okay," Dean replied, because that was all he could think of to say.
~~~~~~~~~~
They went on taking turns during the night. Pastor Jim made Sammy go to bed upstairs, in his regular bed, but he brought down some pillows and blankets and made up a place for Dean to sleep on the couch, and a place for himself in his big recliner. They put the shoebox on the coffee table, and set up an alarm clock to go off every two hours.
Dean didn't have to help, Jim said. But helping him take care of the kitten was no worse than getting up in the night with Dad and helping him change Sammy's diapers. Dad had always said that Dean didn't need to do that either, that he could just go back to sleep, but it had never seemed right making Dad do all that work himself. "I can takes a turn," Dean had always offered, and Dad had always smiled at him.
Dad hadn't been smiling much lately.
The first night went okay. In a way, it was kind of nice sitting there in the quiet and feeding the kitten. Pastor Jim agreed - in the morning, he said being awake when things were at peace had helped him think of a new subject for his sermon.
"Like what?" Sam asked.
"Generosity. How to give with a loving heart."
That didn't interest Sam much, so he went wandering off to play with his Legos. That left Dean and Pastor Jim together in the living room, watching the kitten bump around inside the shoebox. It was still looking for its mother, Dean figured, or maybe its brothers and sisters. Either way, it didn't seem too upset about being stuck in a shoebox with some old washcloths instead of other cats.
"Pastor Jim?" Dean ventured.
"Hmm?"
"How come… How did it get out there? Where we found it?"
"I imagine someone abandoned it there."
"All by itself?"
Jim gave Dean the look that meant he was figuring out whether Dean was old enough to hear a particular thing. He'd told Dean once that that was what the look meant - and that yes, he'd figured out that Dean was old enough to know that that was what Jim was thinking. He was a smart kid, Jim had told him. Smart enough to handle certain things. Which didn't mean that Jim told Dean a whole lot more than he told Sammy, but a little bit was better than nothing. Because, after all, Dean was eight years old.
"I imagine there were more of them," Jim said.
Figuring out what he meant - all of what he meant - took a minute. Understanding made that weird feeling fill up Dean's chest again. "Oh," he said softly.
"We save what we can, Dean."
"If we had gone there sooner, maybe I could have found the other ones."
"Maybe. But maybe not. You did save this one."
The kitten was all curled up against Dean's hand. It seemed content to sleep that way, like it - she - trusted him. She couldn't see him, but maybe she thought his smell was okay.
"I guess," Dean said.
"Have you talked to your father about keeping her?" Jim asked after a while.
Dean didn't look at him. "He won't let me."
"Are you sure?"
Pastor Jim was one of the least dumb people Dean knew, but like all grownups, every once in a while he could come up with something that was colossally stupid. The trouble was, there was no good way to point out to a grownup how dumb they were.
"Doesn't matter," Dean muttered.
"Maybe you should give her a name."
"What for?"
"Your gift to her."
That was pretty dumb, too. "It's a cat."
"One of God's creatures."
"Then let God name it," Dean sputtered, and went stumbling away from the couch.
A dozen or more visits to Blue Earth had made him familiar enough with the house that he could get from one end of it to the other without really looking, and he did it now, keeping to a more-or-less straight path from the living room to the kitchen and on out the back door. He kept going until he reached his favorite tree, one he could climb like a monkey, with hand and footholds easy to find and a nice thick branch maybe fifteen feet off the ground that he could straddle, back resting against the trunk, mostly hidden from below by a thick network of leaves.
He was alone out there for a while, listening to the wind and the birds and the sound of the radio from the Lundquists' house, the next one over from Pastor Jim's. All he could see of either house was a little bit of the window of the room where Dad was sleeping.
Which wasn't really something he wanted to look at.
"It's going to be a while," Jim said from down below.
"Until what?" Dean muttered.
"Until your dad's ribs heal up. Heaven knows that if he decides he's got to be out of here before that, there'll be no stopping him, but maybe the world will stay quiet this time. Keep itself moving along without the aid of John Winchester."
For a grownup, Jim was a pretty good climber. He picked a branch close to Dean's and settled himself on it like he climbed up into this tree every day of the week. For all Dean knew, maybe he did. It wasn't like the church had any kind of rule against climbing trees. It had rules against other stuff - some of which made sense and some that didn't - but Dean was pretty sure tree-climbing wasn't on the forbidden list.
"It's tough to be in the middle," Jim said after a minute.
"I'm not," Dean replied.
"Too big to be little, and too little to be big."
"I can do stuff."
"But not enough stuff?"
That was stirring up trouble, Dean figured. He'd decided that while he was sitting there alone: that he was eight years old, and he could do what he could do, and he couldn't do what he couldn't do. Getting PO'ed because he couldn't drive, or go out with Dad went he went after the bad things, or make decisions about where they went or when - that wouldn't accomplish anything. He was a kid. And it wasn't like Dad never let him decide anything. The other day, for instance, Dad had let him pick the place where they stopped to eat. The only requirement was, it had to be a place that had hamburgers, because Sammy had decided he would die stone cold dead if he didn't get a hamburger and there was no point in telling Sam he couldn't have something, not when it would result in Sam pitching a fit.
Dean could live really, really well if Sam didn't pitch any more fits. Ever.
"I meant what I told you yesterday," Jim said. "About you being a help to your father. He appreciates what you do - even if he doesn't say so."
Which was pretty funny, because the last time they'd been here, Dad and Jim had an argument over how much stuff Dad made Dean do when it should've been Dad doing it. What exactly Jim meant - what stuff, in particular - Dean wasn't sure, but either way, there'd been swearing that time too.
"Whatever," Dean mumbled.
"You're an excellent big brother to Sam."
"Yeah, whatever."
"Feeling like trading Sam in for the cat?" Jim asked.
He just didn't know when to leave well enough alone. That was the thing about being a pastor, Dean figured: you were supposed to keep hacking at people until they said what you wanted them to say, or felt how you wanted them to feel. "Can I be by myself?" he gritted out. "I just want to be by myself."
He was pretty surprised when Jim said, "Of course you can," and climbed down out of the tree.
~~~~~~~~~~
At dinnertime he told Mrs. Lundquist he'd take the tray up to Dad. He didn't know whether Dad would wake up long enough to eat anything, and eating might hurt his ribs - but he did need to eat something, and Mrs. Lundquist had made him a bowl of soup and a grilled cheese sandwich, two of Dad's favorites.
When he pushed the door open, Dad was staring up at the ceiling. He seemed okay, not in too much pain or anything, so Dean said, "Hi, Dad."
"Hello, son."
"Are you hungry?"
Dad thought that over for a second, then said, "I think I am, yeah."
Mrs. Lundquist made excellent soup, homemade, not out of a can. This batch was vegetable beef, with nice big chunks of meat. If anything could make Dad sit up and eat something, it was a bowl of Mrs. L's beef soup. And sure enough, Dad started sniffing the air before Dean was halfway to the bed. He shifted around - and that hurt, for sure, because he made a lot of faces in the process - and propped himself up against the pillows, then took the tray from Dean and set it on his lap.
"You ate already?" he asked.
"Uh-huh."
"Did Sam eat?"
"Uh-huh."
Dad just looked at the tray for a second, like he might be changing his mind about eating. Then he gave Dean a smile that only looked a little bit fake and picked up half of the grilled cheese sandwich. "Want to tell me what's on your mind?" he asked, and took a bite out of the grilled cheese.
"I don't have anything on my mind."
"My mistake. Thought maybe you did."
He didn't push any further; he let Dean stand there shuffling his feet against the braided rug while he ate his soup and sandwich. His face relaxed after a few minutes - if his ribs still hurt him, the soup and the sandwich seemed to be good medicine for it.
"I -"
Dad raised an eyebrow.
"Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay."
"I'll be fine. I'm a little banged up, is all."
"How did you hurt your ribs? Pastor Jim said you hurt your ribs."
After another bite, Dad shrugged a little and said, "Fell against a table." He chewed, then sighed. "Got thrown against a table."
"By the bad thing?"
"Pissed-off spirit."
"Oh."
"Don't bounce as well as I used to."
That was supposed to make Dean laugh, so he made a little huff. Not a real laugh, because the joke wasn't that funny. "Did you get rid of it?"
"I did, yeah."
"I wish -" Dean stopped, but Dad raised an eyebrow, encouraging him to keep going. It took some serious studying of the braided rug before Dean could do that. "I wish you could kill the bad stuff without getting beat up."
Dad had to do some studying too, but of his soup, not the rug. "That's the thing about fighting the good fight," he said quietly, and he was smiling, but it looked a little sad. "It's not ever easy. You get knocked around. Sometimes you get knocked around a lot. But it's for a good reason. You know what I'm saying?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good man."
That feeling was in Dean's chest again, and it was so tight that he felt like saying Dammit!! like Dad would. If it kept up much longer it was going to make him cry, and that was definitely one thing he did not want to do in front of Dad - or in front of Pastor Jim or Mrs. Lundquist or Sam or anybody. He was eight years old, dammit, not a little four-year-old kid like Sammy, and Pastor Jim trusted him to understand things.
Dad did too, he figured.
But some days he didn't want to understand things. Didn't want to understand them at all.
"I have to go to the bathroom," he said, and hustled quick out of Dad's room. He didn't go into the bathroom, though. He went back downstairs, out the kitchen door, and ran far enough that when he did start to cry, no one saw it.
~~~~~~~~~~
There was more yelling the next morning. It didn't start out that way; Pastor Jim was just talking to Dad in a normal voice. They didn't seem to know Dean was in the room next door, looking for some comics to take outside and read, because they were talking about school and whether or not it was necessary for Dean to stay in the same school all the time, and how things would go once Sam started kindergarten in the fall. Really, Pastor Jim was doing most of the talking. Dad didn't say much other than, "Uh-huh."
Then Jim made a mistake. He said something about responsibility. And Dad said, "Don't tell me what my responsibilities are. I know damn well what my responsibilities are."
It got worse from there.
That afternoon, Dean missed feeding the kitten two times. He stayed outdoors, reading his comics (one of them he read three times), because Pastor Jim and Mrs. Lundquist were in the house and they were the grownups, and just because he'd found that cat didn't mean he had to take care of it for the whole rest of his life. He didn't feel bad about not feeding it, not for one second, and nobody came out to tell him he should go in the house.
The house was another thing they yelled about. Pastor Jim said Dad should show him some respect in his own house. And Dad said, "It's your house now?" Said he thought it belonged to the f-ing community.
For two guys who were supposed to be friends, they yelled a lot. And swore a lot. But Jim had only thrown Dad out once that Dean could remember. The rest of the time he walked away. Sometimes he'd shut himself up in his study, and sometimes he'd walk over to the church, but when he finally came back he didn't seem to be mad any more, just quiet. It had something to do with his being a pastor, Dean supposed. With that kind of a job you couldn't go around yelling at people and throwing them out. You had to do that turn the other cheek thing. Had to let the other person win, in a way. If Jim had some other kind of job, he might haul off and punch Dad, or threaten to shoot him, like Uncle Bobby did sometimes. Dad did that to people: made them want to clean his clock. But he didn't mean it. He really, really didn't mean it.
Nobody who meant to be a sonofabitch would cry the way Dad had that one night when he thought Dean was asleep. It'd been a long time ago, back when Sammy was still wearing diapers. He'd gone outside the motel room but he hadn't shut the door all the way.
"Mary," he'd said while he was crying. "Oh, God, Mary."
Being sad that way had to be worse than getting bounced off a table. You could get better from bruises and cuts and even broken bones.
You might not ever get better from knowing a bad thing killed somebody you loved.
Dean went inside, finally, at dinnertime.
"I helped Pastor Jim," Sammy told him, and you would think it was some huge thing, instead of just feeding a stupid cat.
At nine o'clock he went upstairs to go to bed, in his regular bed.
Stupid cat, he thought.
He slept for a while. When he woke up, he could hear Dad snoring in the other guest room. Sam was in his regular bed next to Dean's - or on top of it, anyway, because he had pushed all the covers off onto the floor and all he had left was his pillow. Without thinking much about it Dean got up, lifted Sam's covers up off the floor and arranged them the way they were supposed to be, tucking them carefully around Sam's shoulders.
Other than the noise Dad was making, and the ticking of the old-fashioned clock out in the hallway, the house was quiet. Outside was quiet too, which wasn't unusual; nothing much ever happened in this part of town, and there wasn't a whole lot of traffic. The only time it ever really got noisy was when the kid two houses down from the Lundquists turned his music way up, and that never lasted long.
Pastor Jim had asked Dean once if he would like to live in Blue Earth.
It was a dumb name for a town, Blue Earth. Both he and Sammy had wondered if, a long time ago, the dirt had actually been blue back when the place was named, or if any of it still was blue. Pastor Jim had told them yes, and took them down by the river, where the mud did look sort of blue if the light hit it the right way. Not a real blue, but a sort-of blue. That had been a good day - Jim had told them all about the Native Americans and the old names of some of the places and things. After that he'd shown them the statue of the Jolly Green Giant. Any place that had a 55-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant could be a decent place to live, Dean figured. Plus, of course, it had Mrs. Lundquist's soup.
But staying?
Dean had never once asked Dad if they could stay someplace. For a few days, sure, but not for good. Not forever.
It would have only made Dad yell. Or worse, it would have made Dad look sad.
Careful not to make any noise, Dean opened the door and crept out into the hallway, heading for the bathroom. He'd gone a few steps when he realized there was a light on downstairs. He went ahead and used the bathroom, and got halfway back to his and Sammy's room before he stopped. The floor was a little cold under his bare feet, and what he wanted more than anything right then was to run back to bed and snuggle in where it was warm.
But there was a light on downstairs.
One hand sliding along the railing he crept down the stairs and found Pastor Jim sitting in his recliner with a book lying open on his lap. At first Dean thought he was asleep, but when he started to cross the room to look into the kitten's shoebox, Jim said quietly, "It's nice to have some company."
So he stayed in the living room with Jim and the kitten the rest of the night.
Part 2...