Book One Part 2

[maychorian]

1984

John hadn't been sure how Dean would react to waking up with a strange child in bed with him, but the boy was oddly calm about it all. The next morning John saw him stir and wake, rolling over under the weight of Jimmy's arm, and then he turned and stared at the stranger still asleep beside him, taking him in. The fever flush had receded, John was glad to see, and the five-year-old's eyes were bright with curiosity.

He saw John watching, sitting on the other bed giving Sammy his bottle, and sat up to look at him questioningly. It was too bad that he still barely talked, but he managed to communicate pretty well without it. John gave his son a cautious smile. "His name is Jimmy. He came yesterday."

Dean nodded and looked down at the boy beside him, the blankets bunching around his waist as he wiggled to a more comfortable spot. He reached out and gently, cautiously patted Jimmy's arm. Jimmy twitched and pulled away, fear crossing his face even in his sleep. He turned his back on Dean and curled up, protecting himself. Dean frowned.

He climbed down from the bed and circled around to climb up by John so he could watch Sammy, which was his favorite activity. Next to John where he could lean on his arm, he alternately stared at Sammy, then at Jimmy. The feeding was taking too long for Dean's patience, though. He kept looking back at Jimmy, then up at John.

"What is it?" John asked, mystified. Dean obviously wanted him to do something, but he couldn't figure it out. Sammy mewled a protest when his hand drooped, making the milk harder to suck, and John lifted his hand again.

Dean shook his head in a fit of (admittedly adorable) toddler exasperation, then pushed himself down from the bed and crossed over to stand by Jimmy. Chubby little hands tugged on the blankets, straightening them out where they had gotten disarranged around the sleeping boy. He pulled them up around Jimmy's chin and smoothed them to his satisfaction, then finally crossed back over to John and climbed up next to him again.

"Oh. Good job, buddy. We don't want him to get cold, huh?"

Dean nodded and leaned his head on John's arm, pressing almost painfully into the bicep, which made it more difficult to hold the bottle steady. John grunted slightly but didn't try to dislodge him. Dean yawned cavernously, and John could feel his eyelashes flicking against his arm.

"You hungry, Dean?" John asked. The boy had had very little appetite over the course of his cold, but the coughing seemed to have stopped sometime last night and he seemed much more alert and energetic. He nodded toward the table in the kitchenette. "I got Cheerios. That sound good?"

Dean nodded and turned his head to wipe his nose along his father's arm, leaving a strip of yellow slime. John bore it with a grimace. "Okay. Sammy's almost done with his bottle, and then I'll get your milk. Think you can pour a bowl of Cheerios for yourself?"

Dean nodded again, more firmly. He sat up, then slipped down the edge of the bed and padded across the carpet in his cowboy pajamas. He had to kneel on the chair and lean his whole body over the table to snag the box of cereal and a bowl, but he managed the task with great competence for such a small boy.

Sammy finished the bottle, alerting John with the hollow, sucking sound of emptiness, then squirmed to be let down. John took a few minutes to burp him, then let him toddle across the floor, and he lost himself in the morning routine of caring for his boys. There were tiny garments to draw over fragile limbs, bellies to feed, teeth and hair to brush. Through it all, Jimmy slept, a round lump of uncertainty and questions coiled under blankets smoothed by a little child's hand.

John had seen a library in this town and had planned to go there this afternoon. Libraries were good—he could let Dean and Sammy play in the children's section and keep an eye on them while he read. And eventually, someday, one of these libraries would have to hold some information that he needed. But now this little boy had come, and plans would have to change.

He hadn't forgotten what this strange child had promised, either. I know what killed your wife.

At last, he tired of waiting for the boy to wake on his own. John stepped over to the bed and crouched down so he wouldn't loom over him, then carefully shook a blanket-wrapped shoulder. Jimmy had burrowed even further under the covers while he slept, but at the touch he jerked up, staring, blue eyes wide and panicked.

"It's okay, it's okay," John said. He glanced over his shoulder to Dean, stomach-down on the floor coloring in a dog-eared coloring book, Sammy pulling himself up on the kitchen chair and swaying on his fat baby legs. They were all right, wouldn't be able to hear low murmurs from all the way over here. "I need you to tell me now. What's going on? What do you know?"

The panic didn't just fade—it vanished abruptly. Jimmy's face seemed to shut down, just like that, from wide-eyed fear to a cool, blank slate. "I know quite a lot, Mr. Winchester."

John rubbed a hand over his face. "Yeah, like that. How do you know my name? How did you find me and follow me from the last motel?"

Jimmy sat up, cautiously, moving slowly as if every muscle ached. Which it probably did, John thought, remembering the bruises and welts that marked this boy. Jimmy leaned back against the headboard and sat cross-legged, his hands hanging limply in his lap. "I know things. I know the future. Terrible events are going to occur, and you have the power to mitigate them."

"You're a psychic?" John rose to sit on the edge of the bed, facing the child. He hunched his shoulders consciously, aware of how large and broad he was. He remembered Missouri Mosely, who had given him his first glimpse into the darkness that crowded the world. If this boy was like her...

Jimmy was watching him, still with caution, his slight young body tense against the headboard, but also with a kind of calculation that was strange to see in someone so young. Had John had any room in him for anything but worry about his own family, his own sons, he would have felt grief for this boy, made so old before his time by the horrors he'd been forced to endure. As it was he only gazed back, similarly calculating.

"Something like that," Jimmy said at last.

"But it's more than that," John said. "You can do things, too. Unless you hitched a ride just after I left that last motel, one that took you exactly where you needed to go to follow me, there was no way you could have caught up with me that quick. What, can you fly?"

He said it jokingly, but the response he saw in those blue eyes, the shuttered flick of a dark, trembling eyelash, made him sit back with a gasp, unbelieving. Unconsciously, his hand began to inch toward the gun he always kept in the back of his belt.

Jimmy's arms wrapped around his belly, his breath coming a little faster, the fear returning. "You don't need that."

"Don't I?" John huffed out a laugh, heard how menacing it sounded and was not sorry. "Tell me what you are."

The quiet noises of Dean and Sammy playing had ceased. John noticed Jimmy staring over his shoulder and flicked his eyes over to his boys, saw them staring and silent. The room felt too tight and close, the air thick and heavy.

Jimmy's heels and hands dug into the mattress as he crab-walked away, slowly, toward the other side of the bed. He kept his eyes on John for every second, not even blinking. "I'll tell you, but not here."

John nodded, followed the boy and stood up next to him, large hand circling the boy's upper arm before he thought about it. Jimmy startled at the touch, and John could see the pulse pounding in his throat, could feel the weakness of the boy's slender limbs and fluttering chest. He didn't lighten his grip, just walked them into the bathroom and shut the door.

Bringing them into even closer quarters was a mistake, he saw instantly. Maybe they should have gone outside, even though it was still raining. Sat in the Impala, maybe, something, anything besides this closet-sized room where the kid obviously felt even more trapped, more out of control. The instant the door shut behind them Jimmy wrenched his arm free of John's hand and shrank back against the wall, as far as he could go—which wasn't very far at all—arms automatically rising to shield his face from a blow.

John lifted his hands, open, conciliatory, and sat on the edge of the tub. It made Jimmy slightly taller than him and also put the boy between him and the door, so he could escape if he felt the need. Jimmy slid away along the wall, brushing over the towel racks as he went, and pressed his back to the door where he bumped his head painfully on a garment hook. His hand fell on the knob, and John thought that was it. He was going to get out of there, run away, never come back, and John would lose the first lead he'd had on what really happened to his wife. But the boy stood there, panting, watching John but not running yet.

"Okay," John said, low and soothing. "Okay. Dean and Sammy can't hear us now. Tell me what you need me to know."

A spasm of frustration crossed the young face. "You won't believe me."

"I have no reason not to believe you." John rested his hands on his knees. "I don't know anything about what's out there, anything at all. You obviously do. I have no preconceived notions. And you...you know my name, and you say you're here to help me. You say you know what killed my wife and you look at my children as if you know them, as if you love them. So... I will listen to you. Whatever you have to say, I will listen. And I'll do my best to believe you. I promise."

Jimmy still shook, but John could see the struggle in his face, the calm mask fighting to smooth over his terror. At last the calm won, and the boy stood up straight, removing his hand from the doorknob. He still trembled lightly, but it seemed to be a purely physical reaction, completely out of his control.

"My name is Jimmy," he said. "That is the body I wear, the child James Novak of Illinois. But I am also Castiel, angel of the Lord."

John felt frozen. Only his eyes moved, widening and widening.

"Angels aren't real," he whispered.

"I assure you that we are," Jimmy...Castiel...Jimmy said firmly. "You believe now that monsters are real, that ghosts are real, that darkness is real. Why not the light as well? The woman Missouri does not know everything in creation. She couldn't even tell you for certain what it is that killed Mary Winchester."

That was true, John thought, though the world was buzzing in his ears and everything seemed to float.

"And you promised you would try to believe me," the boy added, plaintively. "You promised."

"I'm trying," John muttered. He gripped the tub on either side of him to steady and ground himself.

The kid's hand was on the doorknob again.

"If you're an angel, why do you need this Jimmy kid?" he asked, trying to regain his footing. "Shouldn't you just be yourself...Castiel? Like the angels who go visiting in the Bible?"

"Those visited by angels in the Bible feared them greatly," Jimmy said. "And only certain humans can see our true selves without burning at the sight. This vessel is for your benefit, not mine."

"But this kid...Jimmy... Jimmy's hurt and in trouble. You think I can't see that? Why are you using a child who's obviously been beat up enough? He can't possibly want this. He should be in a hospital. Or...or in a court room somewhere, testifying against whoever did this to him. Why are you using him?" John felt righteous anger rising in him again, and it felt good, it felt right. If there really was some kind of creature inside this boy, he couldn't possibly be a good guy.

Jimmy-Castiel slumped at this, misery pouring over his face. His knees, trembling for the entirety of this conversation, buckled at last, and he slid down to the floor, staring up at John with those big blue eyes as if asking for something he couldn't say aloud. "I know. I know Jimmy is hurt, and frightened, and I am unable to help him. But, Mr. Winchester... Mr. Winchester, I am also injured. I was wounded in the journey that brought me here and I...I am trapped. I cannot leave Jimmy's body. He deserves much better, and I deeply regret that this has happened, but there's nothing I can do about it. We're...stuck with each other."

John wasn't sure he should trust his perceptions about it, but the creature, the angel, the kid, whatever it was sitting there on the bathroom floor looking up at him with those enormous eyes...he seemed sincerely unhappy about this. John saw pain there, sadness, and a guilt so deep and overwhelming that it made him catch his breath.

"Can I...can I talk to Jimmy?" he asked. "The real Jimmy? Is he still in there?"

The boy nodded, and a change swept over his face. The thin edge of calm he had maintained was swept away in a flood of all-too-human fear and grief and weariness. His body language changed, too, arms wrapping around his chest to hug himself, and he held himself differently, more loose-limbed and more tense at the same time. He looked like a little boy, instead of a supernatural creature inside of a little boy, and John believed Castiel's story just that little bit more.

"I'm Jimmy Novak," he said softly, and his voice was different, too, higher, more emotional. And shaking with nerves. "Everything Castiel said is true. I can...I can see inside his mind, and he can see inside mine. We're...bound together. I was...I was locked in the closet again, Mr. Baker put me there, and then Castiel came and saved me. I was scared at first but I can...I can see him, Mr. Winchester. I can see everything about him. He's weak and hurt and scared, and he's not used to that, he's never been weak and hurt and scared before. But he's also brave and strong and righteous, and he wants to save your son from dying."

"My son?" John whispered. "My son is dying?" He didn't bother to ask which one. Either would destroy him. He could barely think, he... What was he supposed to do? It couldn't happen, it couldn't, it couldn't...

"Not now," Jimmy said hastily, seeing the terror in John's face. "But someday, yeah, things are going to happen... But, but we can change the future! That's what Castiel wants, that's why he came back here, came back in time from way far in the future. That's why he's here, that's why I'm here. To change things. To make them better." His arms unwrapped from around his chest and he lifted his hands as if in supplication, pleading for John to believe, to accept. "I want this, I do. We're stuck like this, but I want to help Castiel. I want to help you and your sons. Please don't send us away."

John buried his face in his hands, trying to breathe through it. He smelled the generic soap and shampoo of this tiny motel bathroom, and under it the smell of mildew and rot barely buried in bleach. He heard the soft, aching pants of this desperate boy, and he wanted to believe. Oh, he wanted to believe.

At last he pulled his hands down his face, looked at Jimmy over the long tan blobs of his fingers. The boy stared back at him, wary and hopeful in equal measure.

"So what you're saying..." He chuckled, deep and soft, and rubbed his hands over his face before giving the kid a slow smile. "What you're saying is that you really did fly, huh?"

Jimmy caught his breath, and then he laughed, broad white grin splitting his face. It was a little too hysterical, but it was real, genuine and joyful with relief, so young and sweet and true that it made John's heart ache in his chest. "Kind of, yeah. I mean, it hurts like everything, but it does feel a little like flying. Castiel can't do it very much, though. He's too hurt. But yeah. Flying."

John smiled. It felt good.

~*~

1989

Unlike Dean, Jimmy had never seemed at all interested in being a hunter. Dean didn't get it. His dad was a hero, saving people, killing monsters. Who wouldn't want to be involved in that? Who wouldn't want to be a squire to a knight?

As soon as Dean was old enough that Dad would let him hold a gun, he was out there every chance he got, shooting targets at his father's side. He ate up every lesson in hand-to-hand, tried to pass them on to Sammy, pestered Jimmy to spar with him when Dad wasn't around. He even did his best with the Latin, though he didn't really like it, because someday it was going to be very, very important. Dad said so and Dean believed him. More than anything else in his life, Dean believed in his father.

It wasn't that Jimmy ignored the hunting stuff or didn't take it seriously. He totally did. Jimmy took just about everything seriously, but especially this. It was his job to look out for Dean and Sammy, kinda like it was Dean's job to look for his little brother, only Jimmy was even more intense about it than Dean was. He just...didn't seem to like it. He made faces when he cleaned the guns, as if they smelled bad. Dean beat him more often than not when they were sparring, and he'd finally figured out that Jimmy really wasn't letting him win all the time because he was younger and littler—Jimmy just sucked at hand-to-hand. When Dad let them meet another one of his hunting buddies Jimmy didn't push forward and ask every question he could think of, like Dean did. Instead he stood back and watched the stranger with narrowed eyes, the way someone would watch a snake, expecting it to strike.

Jimmy was weird.

But that night, the night Jimmy somehow killed a monster that had attacked him and Sammy... That night, Dean lay awake, holding Jimmy's hand, watching him sleep. He saw the shadows under his big brother's eyes, the bits of dried blood on his upper lip from where his nose had been bleeding. He thought about the light leaking from Jimmy's eyes and mouth, the flash that had killed the thing attacking him. Was that really all caused by the monster, or was it just something inherently...Jimmy? For the first time, Dean wondered if maybe the hunting stuff wasn't so important to Jimmy not because he didn't care about saving people and hunting things, but because he had something else going on, something else that was more important to him. Some other task or mission or quest.

Hadn't he even said something like that in the past? Dean remembered being a little younger, maybe six or seven. It was a long time ago so he wasn't sure. But he still remembered a time when Jimmy was not his brother, unlike Sammy. He remembered things being different, a house and a garden and a mother with soft hands and long golden hair. Even at the age of six or seven, he was aware that other families weren't like theirs, that the Winchesters had been changed on the night his mommy died, and things would never be the same again.

At the time he had thought, with the reasoning of a little kid, that Jimmy wasn't a Winchester, so his life should be different, too. He should have a mom and a dad and a house and go the same school for years and years. He should have more. And he had asked Jimmy a question which ten-year-old Dean was now aware had been very, very rude.

Jimmy had just looked at him with those serious eyes for a moment, then said slowly, "My place is here, with you and Sam and your father. My job is to take care of you and guide you into the future. I'm a Winchester now." He glanced around and lowered his voice, so only Dean could hear. "And my parents...my parents died, too. A...a monster killed them. We are the same, Dean. We are very much the same."

But they weren't the same, Dean thought now, watching him sleep. Jimmy was weird, and Jimmy was different, and something was going on.

Dean wanted to ask the next day—Dad had said they would talk about it tomorrow—but they were really busy with packing up and heading out. Dad was in a hurry to leave, shaking Dean awake when it was still gray and early to come help him. Usually Jimmy did most of this, organizing and sorting things into all of the correct pockets and compartments, but they let him sleep, curled and still in the warm cocoon Dean was forced to leave behind. Dad even dragged Sammy out, mumbling and rubbing his eyes, to clean up the little box of Legos he'd left scattered in the corner. Sammy wasn't happy about that. Jimmy slept through it all.

Dad still smelled a little bit like fire and salt from last night. Dean knew he must have dragged out the body of that monster and burned it. He had picked up a lot of things about hunting, even though Dad mostly tried to keep him away from it. They ate the last of the cold cereal and dumped out the leftover milk, and it was time to go. Dad went to the bedroom for Jimmy, and Dean took Sammy out to the Impala and made sure he was in there safe before going back. (Sammy rolled his eyes a lot but said, "Yes, Dean, I promise to stay in the car, okay?")

Dean went back and checked everything one last time, the way they always did, making sure nothing was left behind. He knew Dad had already checked, though. He just wanted to be there when Jimmy woke up. After awhile he quit even pretending to look around and went to lean in the bedroom doorway, watching.

Dad was shaking Jimmy's shoulders, gently but insistently. By the tone of his voice, Dean could tell that he'd been doing it for awhile. "C'mon, Jimmy. C'mon, kiddo. Wake up now. Can you hear me? Wake up. We'll get doughnuts. You like doughnuts. Time to get on the road. Castiel? You in there? C'mon. C'mon. Wake up!"

"Dad?" Dean whispered. His voice echoed strangely, so small and scared. Tiny. You almost couldn't hear it at all. Castiel? Who was that?

Dad heard him, though. He whipped his head around, eyes sharp and hard. "Dean! Shouldn't you be with Sammy?"

"He promised he'd stay in the car." Dean swallowed, his eyes still on his brother. "What's wrong with him? Why won't he wake up?"

Dad sighed, swiped a hand over his face. "He's just tired, Dean. You remember last summer, when you fell out of the tree? This happened then, too."

"It did?" Dean's eyes just about bugged out of his skull.

He barely remembered that day. They had been running around at Uncle Bobby's, messing where they shouldn't have been messing. He'd been excited by the trees at the edge of the property, especially one with a thick, low-hung branch that seemed to beg for a small boy to climb on it. He slung himself up, all but cackling in his delight. Motels almost never had good climbing trees.

He remembered Jimmy's worried voice, below, ordering him to come down. Remembered calling back, telling his brother to come up, instead. Dean climbed into the high branches, relishing in the rough bark scraping his hands and knees and feet, the rustling of green leaves all around, the cool, fresh breeze...

And then there had been a snap, and he fell and fell and hit just about every branch on the way down....

The pain in his leg and head had been blinding, Dean remembered that much. It hurt worse than anything he'd ever felt in his entire life. His vision was almost white, everything in the world turned transparent, and he wondered if this was what it felt like to be burned alive, burned on a ceiling, burned to ashes.

Then Jimmy was there, blue eyes above him like a corner of sky. His face was terrible with fear and concern, almost nothing like Jimmy's face at all. His mouth was moving but Dean heard nothing. Then Jimmy's hands, on his forehead and his chest, two points of soft coolness in the world of fire, and everything went white.

When he woke up it was dark out, and he was in bed. Sammy was sitting there at the foot of his bed, waiting, and when he saw Dean's eyes open he started bouncing up and down, shaking the mattress and yelling, "You're awake, you're awake, you're awake, you're finally awake!" Dean had roused himself enough to shove his little brother off the bed and tell him to shut up, then promptly fell asleep again.

In the morning everything had been back to normal.

Hadn't it?

Dean tilted his head and stared at Jimmy, so pale and still on the crappy motel pillow, and tried to remember. Jimmy had been sick for almost three days after Dean fell out of the tree. He had stayed in bed the whole time, barely waking up long enough for Dad or Uncle Bobby to make him eat and drink, go to the bathroom, brush his teeth. Dean had figured it was the flu or something and was just glad he hadn't caught it, too. He was busy, anyway, trying to keep Sammy happy and out of the sickroom.

Now he looked at his big brother, and he tried to figure it out.

When he woke up the morning after falling out of that tree, he hadn't hurt at all. Not anywhere. He'd felt fantastic. And Jimmy had been so sick, sicker than Dean had ever seen anyone ever before.

"Did he..." Dean stopped, because it just sounded too crazy. "Did he, Dad... Did Jimmy...? Did he heal me?"

Dad was watching him, carefully, his eyes warm and sympathetic. "He didn't want you to know. Not for as long as possible. He just wanted to be your brother."

Dean leaned more heavily on the doorway. "Jimmy has powers? Is he... Is he like Superman?"

Dad chuckled, but it seemed awfully sad for a laugh. "That would be nice, wouldn't it? Not quite. But...something like that, yeah."

Jimmy moaned, rolling his head weakly on the pillow, and Dad turned back to him. "Jimmy? You waking up?"

Dean stepped forward without really thinking about it and climbed up on the bed next to the older boy, watching his eyelids flutter. Dad had a cup of water on the nightstand, one of those plastic cups that came with the room. When Jimmy finally opened his eyes and squinted up at them, face drawing tight in pain, Dad lifted his messy, dark head with one big hand and set the cup to his lips. "C'mon, kiddo. Just a little, then we'll get out of here."

Jimmy seemed too tired to even flinch the way he usually did when their father touched him. He just let Dad take care of him. He was as floppy as a baby, every muscle loose and uncontrolled, and Dean knew that all he wanted to do was go back to sleep. Jimmy tried to keep his eyes open, though, tried to keep an eye on them. After the water, Dad flipped the blanket off him, only his boxers and t-shirt protecting him from the cool air, and Jimmy shivered and woke up a little more. He still couldn't really do anything for himself, though.

Dad handed Dean a pair of Jimmy's socks. "Get these on him. I forgot to leave his shoes out." He went out to the car while Dean knelt at Jimmy's feet and pulled thick cotton over bony heels and protruding toes, white and cold as fish bellies.

Jimmy watched him from the pillow, eyes half-open and glassy with exhaustion. "Y'r hands're warm," he slurred. "S'nice."

Dean gave him a hesitant smile and held those cold feet in his lap, waiting for Dad to come back. "Jimmy?" he asked carefully. "Or...or are you Castiel?"

A shrug and a long, slow blink. "Cas...Cast'l's real tired. Real, real tired, so tired it's makin' me tired too. Took him months to get back that much energy, conce...concentratin' alla time, n' then he blew it all in one shot." He snuggled his head back into the pillow and flopped his arms over his chest, too exhausted even to hug himself. "Mmm. S'comfy."

"Who is Castiel, Jimmy? Alien, ghost? What is he?" Dean kept his voice soft and gentle. He wasn't good at that, but he could do it, for his brothers.

Jimmy stared back at him a little more lucidly. His eyes were as serious as ever, though. He was thinking about it, deciding whether or not to tell him the truth.

Dean all but held his breath.

"Angel," Jimmy said. "Castiel is an angel. He's...inside me, but not me. I'm Jimmy. You know us both."

Dean nodded, rubbed Jimmy's feet. "You're my brother."

And that was all the energy Jimmy had. Dad got back just in time to watch his eyes slip shut again. The man cursed, but there was no heat in it.

He wasn't carrying Jimmy's shoes after all, just a pair of sweats. Dad sighed. "Come on, Dean, help me dress him."

It was both harder and easier than dressing Sammy when he was a baby. Easier because Jimmy wasn't wiggling all over the place and trying to get away so he could go play, harder because he was bigger than Dean and even kind of a handful for Dad—not heavy or anything, just long-limbed and gawky. When they were done Dad scooped Jimmy up with one arm under his knees and the other around his upper back, and Dean opened and closed doors on the way out to the car.

Sammy was kneeling on the backseat, staring out the window and watching them come. He threw open the door before Dean got there, scrambling out to hover around Dad, watching Jimmy with wide, worried eyes. "Is Jimmy okay? What's wrong? Wouldn't he wake up? When will he wake up? What are we gonna do without him? What if he never wakes up? I want him to wake up!"

"He's fine," Dean and Dad said almost exactly at the same time and with the same exasperated tone. Dad shook his head and went to lay Jimmy down in the back while Dean grabbed Sammy's shoulders to keep him from getting underfoot.

"Jimmy's okay. He's just really sleepy, so we gotta let him sleep, okay? He woke up for a while already, and he'll wake up again. We won't have to figure out how to get along without him because he's fine. Okay?"

Sammy's head was on a swivel, switching between staring at Dean and staring at Jimmy and Dad. "You sure?" he asked in a small voice.

"I'm sure." Dean looked over, too, watching Dad leaning all the way into the car, lowering Jimmy's head, held cradled securely in one hand. "Hey, Sammy, you want to sit in front today?"

The little boy's eyes widened. Dean never let Sammy sit in the front when it was his turn. He nodded, little face lighting up with easy joy.

Dean was glad it was so easy to make Sammy happy. He hoped that never changed.

Once Dad got out of the way, Dean got in the back with Jimmy.

~*~

Now that Dean knew the big secret, he couldn't stop wondering if there were more.

The next time Jimmy woke up was at a rest stop in central Illinois. He'd been working up to it for about ten minutes, making little shifts and moans in his sleep, and by the time his eyes finally slipped open, Dean was ready for it. He had squeezed himself into the footwell by Jimmy's head, rubber sneaker soles squeaking in the perpetual grit that littered the floor, and was staring into his eyes from only inches away, patiently waiting for the first sliver of blue to be revealed. Dad and Sammy were getting snacks from the vending machines, so it was a perfect opportunity.

Dean knew better than to pull this kind of crap on his dad—he was likely to get a hasty swat and a torrent of cuss words for something so stupid—but Jimmy just blinked at him, unmoving and calm. Of course, that could have had something to do with how utterly exhausted he still was, too. The older boy's eyelids were heavy, constantly sinking and rising again as he tried to meet Dean's gaze.

"Are you Jimmy?"

His big brother nodded, slow and steady, and Dean tried to believe him. It was hard.

"Were you an angel all along?" he asked. "This whole entire time?"

Jimmy didn't even blink, didn't even shift his body on the seat. "Since we've been brothers, yes. Castiel has been here since I was ten years old. He saved me."

Dean didn't have to ask what Jimmy had been saved from. "And he's always there, inside you? All the time?"

"All the time. But he doesn't force me, Dean. He's not a demon. I'm not locked up in here. I can take control of this body whenever I want. In fact sometimes I take over even when I don't mean to, if I get scared or startled. It was very difficult in the first few days, we were so mixed up and muddled together, and both of us were so confused and frightened. We're better at keeping ourselves separate, now."

Dean's fists were clenched at his side. He looked back on five years of memories, playing with his big brother, talking to him, learning from him. How many of those conversations had been with Castiel, not Jimmy? How many of them were lies?

"Would he leave? If you asked him to, would he leave?" If he wouldn't, Jimmy was still a prisoner, no matter how well he was treated by his captor. Dean wondered if any of the exorcism rituals in Dad's journal would work on an angel.

Jimmy watched him carefully, his eyes understanding and sad. "Dean... He can't."

"He can't leave? Why not? Doesn't he want to? What if he has to?"

"He can't leave my body. He's..." Jimmy yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking one. The bags around his eyes seemed even bigger, darker, and Dean was sorry, but he had to know, he had to understand. "He's hurt, he... He's weak. He's been trying to heal but it takes such a long time, and then he has to use his grace to heal you, or save Sammy, or check on Dad when he's gone too long, or put a little power in the warding symbols, and it just... It's too much, Dean. It's too much...."

Jimmy's voice faded a little more with each tiny tidbit of information, and then his eyes fell shut and he was sleeping again.

Dean huffed out a frustrated breath and tried to make his fists let go. By the time he managed it, Sammy was running back to the car, grinning ear to ear and waving a package of Snowballs in a triumphant fist, and Dad followed behind him with peanut butter crackers and Mountain Dew. Dean got back up on the seat, pulled Jimmy's shoulders into his lap, and ate his snacks, still listing question after question in his head.

The next time Jimmy woke up was at another motel, and it was only because Dad had spent five minutes shaking him. He made Jimmy drink some apple juice and eat a few crackers, and then Jimmy was asleep again and Dean didn't get to ask any more questions. They just kept building up in his mind, though, an avalanche ready to fall if someone just whispered too loud. He could feel it looming over him, heavy and hushed. He didn't want to get buried.

Sammy pestered him to play Tic Tac Toe with him until Dean snapped and yelled at him to leave him alone, scaring the kid so much that he burst into tears. He felt bad then, spent the rest of the evening trying to make it up to him. But all the time he was thinking about Jimmy, and Castiel, and everything he had figured out about possession by eavesdropping or poking until someone answered. He remembered more and more times when Jimmy went weird, when he tilted his head like a bird and used big words that most kids didn't know. Other times when he relaxed and smiled and acted like a kid again. Around and around like a merry-go-round that never stopped, and Dean's brain couldn't stop spinning, either.

He didn't even know why he was mad. He just was. He really, really was.

The next day Dad had to go get supplies, and Dean volunteered for apple-juice-and-cracker duty. He sat next to Jimmy on the double bed, back straight against the headboard, watching him sleep yet again. He hoped that Jimmy would wake up then, without Dean having to do anything, just because Dean wanted him to. It would be like Jimmy to do that—he was always very accommodating and often did exactly what Dean wanted. Not always, though.

Not this time.

"Hey, Sammy! Bring me some ice from the bucket!"

Sammy grumbled, but did as requested before going back to his morning cartoons. Most days Dean would be right there with him, but something more important was going on today.

A piece of ice held against warm, sleep-toasty toes was a powerful thing. Jimmy groaned and curled his feet away, pulling them toward his body and drawing his body into a tight ball wrapped around his pillow. Dean chased him, relentless. "C'mon, Jimmy. C'mon, big brother. Time to wake up."

Jimmy turned his head toward the sound of Dean's voice and slowly, slowly opened his eyes. "Dean?"

"Yeah." Dean plopped down on the bed beside him, making the mattress bounce with the creak of springs and foof of cloth. "You gotta eat something. Do you need the bathroom?"

Jimmy sighed and stared at the ceiling. "Yes. And you have more questions, don't you?"

"Yeah."

"Let's get those out of the way first. I don't want you to bang my head on the wall accidentally on purpose."

Dean huffed. "I wouldn't hurt you."

"You're upset, Deaners. You don't always act the way you mean to when you're upset."

Dean gave him a sideways stare. That was Jimmy's favorite nickname for him, but he didn't use it all that often. His voice was full of understanding and affection, and it sort of pricked a hole in Dean's balloon of indignation. "You can tell I'm upset?"

"I can always tell when you're upset. I know you, little bro."

Dean bumped his head back against the headboard, staring across at Sammy, who was completely oblivious. "I don't know why."

"Mmm." Jimmy hummed thoughtfully, blinking slowly as he stared at the ceiling. His movements were still sluggish and weak, but his voice was clear and sharp. "You feel betrayed. You feel like Dad and me didn't trust you, not telling you something this important."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's part of it." Dean's fist thumped down on the mattress between them, making Jimmy jump slightly, and he felt bad for that. "I just... Jimmy, how can I know it's really you? If this...this angel was inside you the whole time, how'm I supposed to know when it's my brother talking to me and not some supernatural freak? How do I know it's really you here right now? What if this Castiel is trying to fool me? How can I...how can I believe anything you say?"

"Dean...you've always been able to tell." Jimmy reached over, slow and careful, laid a gentle hand on Dean's knee. Gentle, Jimmy was always so gentle. And when he wasn't... "I've always seen you looking back at me, and I know you could always tell. You knew there was something weird about me, but you didn't mind, because you loved me all along. Me, and Castiel, too. You did, Dean, you always did. Whether it's me talking to you right now, or Castiel, it doesn't really matter. We're the same Jimmy you've known all along, and you've never hated us before. Please don't start now."

When he wasn't, that was Castiel. Dean pressed his head back against the hard surface, felt the little pain in his scalp, and squeezed his eyes shut to deny the tears. "But why didn't you tell me? Why didn't he tell me? If you knew I could tell, why not trust me all the way?"

Jimmy sighed. "Castiel... He brings enormous burdens with him. Knowledge of the future. Terrible things. He didn't want to have to tell you. He wanted you to grow up as innocent as possible for as long as you could."

"Oh." Dean opened his eyes. He saw Sammy across the room, watching his cartoons, oblivious. Jimmy...and Castiel...they had wanted to protect him the way he wanted to protect Sammy. He couldn't blame them for that.

"He really is an angel? Castiel?"

His voice sounded very small.

Jimmy just nodded, gave Dean's knee a little squeeze. His eyes were drifting again, and he was almost out of energy. Dean shouldn't have wasted so much time with his questions, should have taken care of him first. But this had been important, he knew that now.

He wouldn't let Jimmy's head bang on any walls.

"My mom used to say that angels were watching over me. And then, after... I didn't believe. I didn't want to believe. It hurt too bad."

"I know," Jimmy whispered. "It's okay."

Dean watched Sammy watching his cartoons, and he firmed his jaw in determination. "We're going to have tell him. We have to tell him everything. I don't want him to be mad at us, too."

Jimmy hummed a gentle agreement and turned his head to get a glimpse of their little brother without lifting his head. "Yes. But not today."

"Not today."

The time would come soon enough. If Sammy started asking questions, Dean would tell him the truth.

~*~

1984

A sunny June day, and the Winchesters were at a playground somewhere in Oklahoma. John sat at a picnic table, keeping an eye on Dean and Sammy as they kicked across the red-brown dirt toward the kiddy slides, Dean holding his baby brother's hands, helping him walk. The baby gurgled laughter, and Dean's tiny chuckle rang out, too. It was beautiful; everything was beautiful.

Across from him at the picnic table sat Jimmy Novak, Castiel the angel, busily licking an ice cream cone with a wet, pink tongue. As John watched, he turned the cone in his hand to lick up a trickle of melted white running down the side, capturing it before it hit his fingers with a happy smack of the lips. Dean and Sammy had already finished off their shared sundae, leaving behind a paper bowl on its side, smears of chocolate and butterscotch on the warped wood and sticky fingers that would need to be washed, and John worked steadily on his own cup of chocolate ice cream. Jimmy kicked his feet under the table, as childlike and carefree as John had ever seen him.

The bruises were gone, the cuts faded to faint red. John didn't know if the flinch would ever leave, though. Some scars didn't heal.

Out of respect for the wounded boy, John had put his questions off for as long as he could, but they burned inside him, hotter and more painful for every hour of delay. Now, though, all three children were as content and happy as they could be, and John could wait no longer. He had to know.

"Jimmy. Castiel."

The boy looked up at him sharply, blue eyes bright and steady. His face was calm and controlled, a sudden mask. Castiel. A rivulet of melted ice cream trailed down the cone, reached his fingers and crossed all four in a rippled stream of white. He didn't react. "Yes, Mr. Winchester?"

John drew a deep breath. "I need you to tell me what killed my wife."

Castiel nodded solemnly. "I will tell you. But you have to make a promise first."

"What sort of promise?"

Castiel turned sideways on the bench to look behind himself at Sammy and Dean. They were climbing up the ladder to one of the plastic slides, Dean behind his brother, guiding his steps and protecting him from any fall. "Your sons have to come first."

"What?" John's fingers froze around his bowl. He didn't know whether to be offended or infuriated or simply flabbergasted at the implication. "Why the hell wouldn't they?"

"I know that revenge is a strong motivator." Those blue, blue eyes caught John's and held them steady. "Once you know who is responsible for the death of Mary Winchester, you will want to pursue that entity to the ends of the earth, even at the cost of everything else that you hold dear. You must not."

John just stared. Yeah, definitely leaning toward offended. "What kind of father do you think I am?"

"A good one," Castiel said earnestly. "Truly, you are a very good father. But you must not let that change. As you travel on down this path, as you become a hunter and begin to face monstrous creatures of all kinds, your priorities will be challenged many times. But I tell you now, nothing on earth is more important than your sons. Dean and Sam are...they are the most important pair of brothers in ten millennia, and nothing is more important than keeping them safe and strong and free from all taints. Nothing. And so you must promise that they will always be first to you. You must guard not only their bodies but their souls as well."

The intensity in that young-old gaze raised goosebumps on John's neck and shoulders. He sat back, trying to meet this strange boy's gaze, and he couldn't manage it. Eventually he looked away, found his sons again. They sat together at the top of the slide, Sammy between Dean's legs, four little hands gripping the sides of the slide. Then Dean pushed them off and they slid down, shrieking their delight.

He felt the weight of this precious burden like a lodestone in his chest. Surely he could never lose his way. But the way Castiel spoke, the things he had seen... Something must have gone wrong in the future that he had come from. How was John to prevent that, alone and hapless as he was? He didn't even know how to fight a ghost, for God's sake, let alone whatever threats Castiel saw coming that made him speak so powerfully and sternly.

"I'll help you."

The young voice was quiet now, pleading. John looked back to him, caught off-guard by this new softness. Still the ancient face of Castiel, the angel of the Lord, but his face was soft with longing.

"I don't have much to offer...I am wounded and weary and far from the powerful ally I should be. But everything I have, I will give to you and your boys. My life is yours."

His spread his hands, one sticky with ice cream, both young and small and helpless. It should have been a ridiculous gesture, worthy only of scorn or pity and careful refusal, but John felt the prick of unexpected tears. He could not reject this heartfelt plea.

He nodded, a swift jerk of the head. "I promise."

Castiel lowered his head, chest heaving with a deep sigh. "Then I will tell you everything."

John looked down at his cup, stirred the chocolate soup around, and took another bite. "Eat your ice cream."

The angel-boy stared curiously at the cone in his hand, then raised it to his mouth, sniffed it, licked the melting trickle across his fingers. John stifled a snort at the look of shocked delight, the spark in his eyes and sudden, startled smile. So Jimmy and Castiel didn't experience everything as one being, and it seemed that the angel had never tasted this treat before. He seemed to like it.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad.

"I have much to teach you. I'll do my best to give you all the tools you need." Castiel looked to the playground, watching Dean and Sammy walk around the slide to climb the ladder again. "The creature that killed your wife is a demon of the highest order, Azazel, a son of Lucifer...."

John ate his ice cream and listened to every word.

End of Book One

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