The Soldiering Life

Part 1

Summary: What if Dean hadn't been raised a Winchester? What if he had been a bastard reluctantly abandoned by Mary so that she could run away with John Winchester? What if Samuel and Deanna had survived their encounter with the Yellow-Eyed Demon? What if they had taken Dean in as their own and raised him as a Campbell? Eventual Destiel AU

Location: Lawrence, Kansas. June 24, 1979.

Even though it was late in the night, Mary Campbell was dressed in a white blouse and jeans. A duffel bag sat silently at the doorway of the nursery.

Mary walked over to the crib containing her son, Dean. She was singing 'Hey Jude' to the sleeping babe as she ran her fingers gently through his dark blond hair that matched her own.

His quiet snores both lifted and crushed her heart as remembrances of disapproving glances and muttered gossip came back to her. All of them aimed at her and her son because she had had him out of wed lock.

Tears stung her lovely blue eyes that shone with love, fear, and regret as she stopped singing and watched him continue to sleep.

"Mommy loves you so much, Dean. She loves you so much. Please, don't ever forget that," she whispered brokenly and leaned over the edge to kiss Dean's forehead tenderly. Mary drew back reluctantly and walked slowly out of the room, keeping eye contact with the crib for as long as she could before she was forced to turn and retrieve her bag.

Mary quickly exited the home she had lived in all her life after that last good bye. She never looked back and just ran to the '67 Mustang containing her lover and fiancé, John Winchester, giving him a heartfelt kiss before he drove them away from this town and into their new lives.

Mary never saw her mother watching sadly from the nursery window, nor did she hear Dean's cries of distress as the baby woke up, sensing that his life had changed drastically.

Location: Lawrence, Kansas. November 5, 1983.

Little Dean Campbell clung tightly to his Grandma Deanna's hand as they stood in the kitchen together. He could hear Grandpa Samuel yelling at the mysterious man who had appeared at their door this morning. Dean was confused about the reason for the yelling, but at the same time frightened by the dark haired stranger who seemed to know him.

"Why is grandpa mad? Did that other man do something bad?" the child asked innocently as he looked up at his grandma with questioning hazel eyes.

Grandma Deanna just looked down at Dean and smiled sadly before she gathered him up into her arms and hugged him tight. He was confused about why she was suddenly doing this, but he smiled and returned the hug as tight as he could.

"I love you, grandma," Dean whispered so that only she could hear, thinking that it would make her feel better if she was upset.

The boy could hear the men arguing about a person named Mary and how she had ran away and died. Dean felt a little bad for Mary after finding out that she had died, but at the same time he hoped the stranger had remembered to salt and burn her remains like Grandpa Samuel had told him to do when people died.

Dean paused in his thinking as he felt his grandma begin to shake and he looked down curiously. He pouted as he caught sight of her tears and hugged his Grandma Deanna tighter.

"Why are you crying, grandma? Did you know that Mary person?" Dean queried and struggled out of her arms so that he could stand on the ground himself and look up at her with determined eyes.

Deanna almost felt ashamed that her grandson was trying to comfort her, but she smiled wryly and nodded her head while wiping away her tears. "Yes. Yes, baby, I knew her. Mary was your mother, Dean," she admitted gloomily and felt her heart break a little as Dean's eyes widened in realization. And though she didn't want to continue, she did, for Dean's sake, believing that he need to find out who the dark haired man was sooner or later anyways. "That man that Grandpa Samuel is yelling at is John Winchester, your father."

Dean was reeling after the revelation. His four year old mind couldn't really handle it, knowing that the man out in the living room was the one who had taken his mom away from him and the same man who had then let her die.

Tears began to stream down Dean's freckled cheeks and he couldn't stop them. But he didn't really want to either, figuring this was as good a time as any to get rid of all his tears before he became a real hunter and got to go out with grandpa and the rest of the Campbell family.

"Dean!" Deanna called out as her grandson turned and bolted into the living room, the boy too fast for her to catch.

Dean ran straight to where John and his grandpa stood in front of the couch and looked up at the dark haired man who looked tired and scruffy. He hated to admit it, but he could see the resemblance and that just made him angrier. His eyes were suddenly hard and he stopped crying, finding himself unable to do anything more than stare up at John Winchester with hate-filled eyes as his small body began to tremble with anger.

"I hate you! I hate you, John Winchester! You took my mom away from me! I hate you and I never want to see you again! Leave! Get out and leave me and grandpa and grandma alone!" the boy with the messy dark blond hair and Batman pajamas yelled up at the man who was more than twice his size. But, after he had finished yelling, Dean clutched tight to his Grandpa Samuel's leg with one hand while his free hand was clenched tight into a fist at his side.

Samuel and John stared down at Dean in surprise and horror respectively for the words the child had just spoken. But Samuel was the first to recover from the lapse and he resumed glaring at the boy who had allowed his daughter to die in a supernatural fire.

"You heard Dean. Get off of my property. If I ever see you back here, I'll shoot you myself," Samuel growled in an unforgiving voice as he rested a hand on his grandson's head, trying to quietly soothe the child's trembling.

John, heartbroken for a second time, returned his own glare at his father-in-law, but took one last look at his son, who looked so much like him and Mary, before he reluctantly turned away and left the house. He headed back to the Mustang where baby Sam lay sleeping peacefully in a carrier and quietly drove away.

When the rumbling of the Mustang's engine could no longer be heard, Deanna and Samuel took Dean and sat him down on the couch between them. Though Samuel wasn't exactly the nurturing type, Deanna more than made up for it with her coddling of the boy.

"That was brave of you, Dean," Samuel praised his grandson with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. The pain of finding out that his only child was dead still too fresh in his old and hardened heart. But he petted Dean's head fondly and silently vowed to himself that he would raise Dean to be a better hunter than even he was, knowing that the child would go through many of the same losses that he had seen, but hoping that the boy would be strong enough to prevent at least some of them.

Location: Campbell Compound. December 25, 1986.

Dean missed Lawrence and the school that he had attended, where he had made a lot of friends and played soccer with them. He had felt normal in Lawrence, but at the same time he had felt really different from everyone else too. The feeling had never truly bothered Dean though and he was coming to like the Campbell Compound.

He could play and learn how to hunt with his cousins, so that made the compound a pretty awesome place to be in Dean's book. And though the lessons were hard, Dean honestly liked them and was already a pretty good shot, or at least, that's what Grandpa Samuel told him. The praise made Dean puff his chest up with pride, but he never let it go to his head. Letting pride go to your head was what got you killed and Grandma Deanna made sure he knew that when she taught him how to make salt-filled shotgun cartridges a couple weeks back.

But now, it's Christmas morning and though the Campbells don't celebrate Christmas, Dean was sitting at a small dinner table in one of the kitchens with Gwen and Christian, two of his favorite cousins. The three of them were practically inseparable after they had first met.

He liked Gwen because she never tattled on him and she was really loyal, always watching his back when they snuck off to explore the complex with Christian. And though he never mentioned it, he thought her dark brown hair was really pretty. It always made him remember something from a long time ago. A mostly forgotten memory of a soft voice and pretty blue eyes with equally pretty hair.

And Dean honestly thought that Christian was pretty cool, even if he was a crybaby sometimes. But that just made them closer because Dean would come to Christian's defense if anyone picked on him and he knows that Christian would do the same for him if it came down to it.

They were enjoying a batch of cookies that one of their aunts had made. Dean suspected that it was Mark's mom who baked them, but Gwen argued that it was Robert's mom, because Aunt Helen never used white chocolate chips in her cookies. Christian, on the other hand, was of the opinion that his cousins were idiots for arguing and not just eating the oven fresh cookies. Though he knew that Gwen was right and that it was Aunt Lena who had made them because he had watched her baking earlier.

"Didn't your mothers ever teach you not to eat sweets for breakfast?" Samuel chuckled as he sat down at the table, joining the trio who giggled and continued to stuff their faces with the cookies regardless of what the patriarch of the family said.

"Don't have a mom. But you and grandma never stopped me from eating pie for breakfast," Dean spoke up after swallowing his mouthful and grinned mischievously, earning himself a light smack to the back of his head from Grandma Deanna when she walked into the kitchen.

"We couldn't stop you from eating the pie even if we tried, Dean Campbell, you pie thief you," Deanna mock scolded and earned herself a round of giggles from Christian and Gwen while Dean rubbed the back of his head lightly, a shy smile showing up on his embarrassed expression.

After the brief bonding moment between the five of them, more members of the extended Campbell clan began to filter into the kitchen while others went to the other kitchens that were in the compound. And with everyone cooking breakfast and getting ready for the day of hunting and research ahead, the compound was quickly filled with pleasant scents and sounds that Dean would always equate with his home and family.