AN: So, this is from way back when I had this whole intense AU planned out – you know, back when I thought I had spare time and less novel-related-guilt crushing the life from my fragile human bones. Also, be kind to Jane. Her life is hard, yo.

Wayward Sons and Daughters

In December of 1989 a file labelled 'WINCHESTER, Dean; Samuel' came across the desk of social worker named Jane Elkins.

Jane took one look at that surname and uttered a low, but fervent "fuck."

She'd heard about John Winchester. He and her daddy were cut from the same damn cloth when you got right down to it, and when Jane drove down to see Dad it was hard not to listen to the gossip. Winchester was making a name for himself, and for his two small boys.

Jane breathed roughly through her nose and began reading, making notes on her jotter pad as she did.

The last school to see those boys – Samuel and Dean – had been an elementary in Fort Douglas, WI. They had been there two weeks, according to the file, during which a police officer had given a talk to Dean's class. The cop noticed Dean because he didn't seem interested in the stories he was telling, all the thrilling heroics of police work going right past the boy. As though he'd heard worse.

In a monumental twist of fate, that same cop was called to an incident in a motel where shots were heard. A man calling himself Elroy McGillicuddy was found at the scene address along with two small boys – one of whom was Dean. The cop didn't call Winchester on his false details, but quietly put through a referral to Child Services.

Now, it turned out, the case had been put through to Windom because Winchester had come up on the radar of the local authorities, and where he was, his boys probably weren't far behind. There were no corresponding school records as yet…and Jane had a feeling there wouldn't be.

Winchester was more wary than ever now, and he was playing it safe.

Jane was going to have to do the same.

Why me, she was still thinking, five hours later as she tucked her hands a little deeper into her coat pockets and trudged up the drive to the front door. Why me, God?

God was characteristically quite on the subject. Bastard.

Jane sighed. Being careful was one thing, but this? This was jumping the gun. Still… the first thing Dad had taught her was be prepared, girlie, because you never know what kind of crap will be waiting for you around the next bend.

The next thing he'd taught her was to listen to her instincts; sometimes they knew more than the rest of your brain, and right now her instincts were screaming 'Lesson one! Lesson one!'

So here she was, being prepared.

She hit the doorbell and waited. The hall light went on behind the door's leadlight a moment before there was the rattle of safety chain and it slide open a few inches.

Kate Milligan took one look at her before shutting the door – chain rattling again – and swinging it wide with a soft, "Come on in, Jane, its freezing out there."

"Thanks," Jane murmured, following the nurse inside.

Kate guided her through to the kitchen. "I've just made tea…"

"Please." Jane settled at the breakfast bar, waiting for the inevitable. "I'm sorry to bother you so late but…"

"Is this about Lucy?" Kate blurted, face hesitant but with those blue eyes burning.

Jane smiled as she accepted her mug of tea, loving the warmth that flowing from the blue ceramic into her frigid fingers. "No," she told Kate, watching the other woman slump a little with relief. "Not really."

"So…you're not going to move her? Not another placement?"

"No, she's staying here," Jane reassured her, voice gentle. "We're hugely happy with having Lucy here, Kate. I actually wanted to talk to you about some other children."

Kate frowned, taking a seat beside her and wrapping her hands around her own steaming mug. "Other children? Other foster children?"

Jane took a deep breath. Be prepared, Janey, always be prepared…

"Yeah, sort of," said Jane. "Another hunter's children."

Two nights later, she was back in the cold, only this time there was a sawn-off shotgun in a sling hidden under her coat and a handful salt'n'pepper shells in her right pocket as she stood leaning against one of the graveyard's mausoleums.

She'd been there for two hours and was in the middle of thanking God for the wonders of thermal underwear when she spotted him; the predicted dark figure in his dark coat. It was a clear night, and she could make out matching dark hair and a duffle over his left shoulder.

He was clever, she thought, holding his own shotgun close to the line of his body, keeping it from being spotted by a distant watcher. Jane herself only caught a glimpse of it because she knew what to look for.

Shaking her head slowly, she sighed (seemed to be doing a lot of that lately) and made a start towards him. She saw the moment he noticed her; coming to attention and freezing where he stood. It was a safe bet that the shotgun was cocked and ready to swing in her direction the moment she put a toe over the line of normal.

"Can I help you?" he called, voice low and graveled.

Jane came to a halt five feet from him and raised her hands in a gesture of surrender.

"You could un-cock the shotgun you're holding behind you," she said, "that'd make me feel better, at least."

His eyes narrowed. In this light, she couldn't tell what color they were, only that they were dark, like the rest of him. "Who are you?"

"Jane Elkins," she told him. "But you can go ahead and ask the 'what are you' question if it'll make you feel better."

He ignored the last part and stared at her, eyes fairly burning with interest now. "Elkins?"

"Thought you'd pick that up," she muttered.

"As in Daniel Elkins? You're related?"

"He's my father," she admitted.

Winchester's thick eyebrows went up. "Your accent…"

"My mother raised me across the pond. I met him when I was thirteen. Look, speaking of family, we need to discuss yours."

The hunter's face hardened. "We don't," he said, striding away from her.

Jane rolled her eyes and simply strode after him. "Yes, we do."

"I'm in the middle of something," he snapped.

"The recent grave desecrations?"

He pulled up short and stared at her again. "You're a hunter?"

"No, I'm a social worker, but I'm not an idiot." She put her hand in her coat pocket and pulled out a few of her shells, letting him see the glitter of the salt packed into the rounds. "Something starts digging up bodies, I'm not going to go into a graveyard unprepared."

"I'm not hunting a ghost," he told her.

"That's why there's buckshot mixed in with the salt."

Winchester's face was still steeped in suspicion. "You said you're a social worker? That's why you want to talk to me?" Everything about him hardened again. "I won't let you take them from me. I won't let you take my boys."

She shook her head. "I don't want to, but you're not exactly doing yourself any favors." Jane felt a sort of swoop in her stomach. This was the risky bit, or the beginning of it anyway. "Look, finish your hunt," she murmured, pulling out her card and handing it to him. "Get all this crap sorted and then… if you want to keep your kids, call me."

His eyes narrowed. "You threatening me?"

She rolled her eyes again as she turned to walk away, calling over her shoulder, "Believe it or not, I'm trying to help you."

The next day, a local deputy announced on the 6 o'clock news that the desecrations had stopped and stopped for good.

The day after that, Jane got a call from Kate Milligan.

"Guy in the trauma ward wants to talk to you," the nurse told her. "A John Winchester. Jane, is this the guy…?"

"Yeah," Jane said, already on her feet and grabbing her coat. "Tell him I'll be right over."

The hospital, like all hospitals seem to be, was cold. Jane remembered this when she entered, coming through those sliding doors at central reception to be met by a gust of climate controlled air that warred with the chill at her back. It made her think of her mother, and Dad's strong hands gripping her shoulders when the nurse pulled the sheet over her face and wheeled the body away.

Shaking her head, she pocketed her hat and, hoping her hair wasn't a complete disaster, made her way to the ward.

Kate was there to meet her, looking somehow nervous and controlled at the same time. Jane caught her fidgeting with her fob watch as the young nurse showed her to John Winchester's room.

"And you're sure…?"

"Kate. Yes. I'm sure." She cast the other woman a sidelong look. "Are you sure, though? About all of this? I know it's a lot to take on. I mean rearing one kid single-handed it one thing, but this…"

But Kate nodded, all determination. "I've thought a lot about this," she said softly. "And I've talked to him, you know? I actually got him to open up and talk about them, about his kids." She looked at Jane, eyes welling with sympathy. "He cares about them so much, Jane. He loves them so hard. And he hasn't said it, but…I think they're the reason he's doing this; the whole hunting thing."

Jane felt her mouth quirk in a sort of half-smile. "It's the reason a lot of people do it, Kate. Well, part of the reason," she says, muttering the last. After all, Dad had started in on this trade before she was born for several reasons, none of them particularly sane. Noble, maybe, but not sane.

Kate tapped at the door to the ward before letting herself and Jane in. She'd managed to get him into one of the smaller double rooms, and since the other bed was unoccupied it was practically private.

"John, Jane's here. Jane Elkins."

Winchester looked up from the leather-bound book in his lap. His hunting journal, no doubt – Jane could see drawing scratched into the pages, and even upside down recognized one of the more elaborate grand pentacles. In day light, she could tell the colour of his eyes; hazel green, with the depth of colour she always wished she'd inherited from her mother, instead of her father's washed out blue.

The hunter didn't smile, but then, who would? Jane didn't take it personally, and settled in the chair Kate had pulled up next to his bed. They said soft goodbyes to Kate as she excused herself and listened as the door clicked shut and her footsteps retreated down the hall.

Winchester cleared his throat. "So, how do we do this?"

"It's not hard. The first priority of child services is to make sure a child is in a stable home environment and that their needs are being taken care of adequately."

"Sounds like a company line to me."

Jane smiled ruefully. "It is a bit, but that's how it goes. If someone notifies the authorities about your sprogs, that's what they'll look for. You can be as transient as you damn like, but that's not going to work for a pair of little boys."

Winchester's face was hard. "I'm doing it for them," he said, voice low. "I'm doing this to keep them safe."

"Which is exactly what the social worker who confiscates them will be thinking. Only they'll be keeping them safe from you." Jane shook her head. "Look, Winchester, Kate's a good woman, and your kids won't be the only ones she's looked after. She's young, but she's had three placements, two of them children of hunters, in the past five years. Her house is warded – by my father, which should tell you all you need to know – and she knows her way around a shotgun."

Winchester was looking back at his journal, eyes hooded. "That's good," he muttered, but the admittance was half-hearted.

Jane watched him for a few moments. "I know you don't want to do this," she said softly.

He looked up at her, a little startled perhaps.

She answered the question in his face with a small smile and shrug. "No normal parent wants to be separated from their child –"

Winchester huffed a brief laugh. "Normal…"

"But the good ones are those who let it happen when they know it's for the good of their children."

He nodded, eyes going distant and sheening faintly. "You know the worst thing I can think of, the very worst thing? Is for Mary to have seen what's become of her family, for her to have seen her children to being raised into…into this."

His fingertips grazed the journal's pages, before his hand curled into a fist briefly. Jane watched his mouth twist as her abruptly shut the book.

"But then I think of that night…of when we lost her, and I think of the thing that took her coming back for the boys…"

"John."

He looked at her again. "Neither of those things has to happen." She smiled. "I think we can help each other…"

AN2: …and then John and Kate totally hooked up and had Adam and Sam and Dean had a semi stable childhood and two extra siblings (cos, Lucy) and basically led lives less shitty.

And then a cosmic kind of shift occurred and canon!Sam woke up in AU!Sam's body in the apartment he shares with Sarah Blake…