Okay, a few of you wanted another chapter and I was bored... so here it is. :) Same as always, reviews make me happy and flames make me sad. I'm working on another "connected stand alone" about the Nair incident. Yeah, it's been done, but its been brewing in my mind since that episode. :) So, it should be up in a few days. If not tomorrow. Oh, yeah, John's POV
Epilogue
I watched through the window.
I did that more than any father should, I suppose. Watching my children from behind doors, or from another room.
I watched from afar when I should be right there, partaking in their reunion. I should be standing right there, next to Dean, steadying him and holding Sammy's little hand.
But instead I watch Dean falter and watch him hold Sammy's hand, all through this little window in the door.
"Mr. Winchester?" A gentle voice asked, though it was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I turned slowly. "My name is Megan Warner. I'm with Child Services."
Child Services. Never have two words scared me more. Except when the words, Help Me come from my boy's mouths. That scares the hell out of me in a way I couldn't describe even if I wanted to.
"Yes?" I asked gruffly. She was a small woman with short red hair pulled into a knot at the nape of her high neck. She was beautiful in a natural, glasses-on-the-end-of-her-freckled-nose type of way.
"I'm here to talk to you about your boys…"
"My boys are fine." I interrupted.
"Yes. I've been talking to Samuel for a while now…"
"Excuse me?" I almost hollered, but I managed to control the volume… barely. She seemed unfazed.
"Yes. The doctors allowed me to speak with him." She looked at her clipboard. "But I would also like to speak to Dean, your oldest. Some of the doctors here are very concerned by some of the bruising they've seen on him."
"I've never hit my boys, if that's what you're insinuating." She seemed surprised when I used a word that wasn't in a drunk's typical vocabulary. "He's a teenage boy. Last week he snuck out of the house and he probably got into a fight of some kind. If you're going to take him away from me because I don't padlock my windows…" She lifted her hand.
"There is no need for joking, Mr. Winchester, this is very serious."
"I know that."
"Do you?" She asked gently. I didn't answer her and she proceeded. "Where is the boys' mother, Mr. Winchester?"
"She died, Mrs. Warner."
"Miss, if you don't mind." She said coldly and looked through her notes. "According to Sam, she died in a house fire?"
"That's correct." I fought the temptation to sit down and put my hands behind my head… because that would be disrespectful. Instead I crossed my arms and leaned against the wall. They had real nice tile floors…
"Sam told me he's been to six different schools." She said suddenly reviewing that damn clipboard I really wanted to yank from her moisturized every day hands and throw it out that ugly stain glass window. I could almost hear the whistling before it shattered on the ground, spreading the incriminating evidence of my horrible parenting across the grass to get sprinkled on and then tore up by the janitor when he drove the ride on lawn mover over it. I could just see the look on her face and it made me smile.
"You find that amusing, Mr. Winchester?" She asked softly. I looked at her and shook my head.
"No, sorry. My mind is somewhere else. My sons collapsed and were taken to the hospital today; excuse me if my conversation skills aren't up to par."
"According to some of my colleagues' evaluations of Dean, he also uses humor to mask his emotions…" She was reading off that goddamned clipboard.
"Can you please make eye contact when you're speaking, Miss Warner?" I asked politely. "Nothing bugs me more." She looked up and held my gaze for an uncomfortably long time.
She was my match, perhaps even more than I could handle.
"Of course, Mr. Winchester, I would hate to be disrespectful." She said bitterly, cocking her head just a fraction of an inch. For the first time I realized how young she was. She had to be about twenty five, not a day older.
"May I ask what got you into this profession, Miss Warner?"
"I was taken from my parents at a young age, Mr. Winchester." She put an angering amount of attitude into my name. "I want to give young kids the opportunity to go to a good family, just like I was given."
"But I bet you wish each day that you could have been given one more chance to make it work with your parents, your real parents."
"You have some nerve to say that to me."
"And you have some nerve to consider taking my boys from me." I snapped, finally losing my cool. "They are all I have left. I would never hurt them. They are safest with me, and always will be. I am their father and I might not be the best father in the world, but I'm the only one that have. You go ask them, they'll tell you. Try and take them away. Go ahead and try. They'll run right back to me because we're a family. Nothing means more to the Winchesters than family." I looked in the window where Dean was trying his hardest not to doze off in the chair. "Now, if you'll excuse me, there is a ten year old in there that needs to go to bed and a seven year old who needs his father." Then I slipped into the room and shut the door on Child Services. I shut the door on the outside world.
All needed was inside that room. My boys. They are all I will ever need.
Okay, so I got into the banter. :) Hope you liked it.