Thank you for waiting,

==000==

There had been much discussion. Dean being convinced that he had to track John down. Bobby and Sam in begrudging agreement. What they did not agree on was who should go. Bobby and Dean wanted Sam either back in California or home safe with Bobby. Sam wanted to go with Dean. They all knew Bobby would be most effective working at the salvage yard doing research, talking to his endless contacts and being there for back up information.

Dean announced that he should do it single-handedly. It was his fault the man was out there, loose somewhere, so it was his problem. Sam had smiled at the language their dad had used in response to that statement. He had always secretly loved it when Bobby would yell at Dean, all the swearing a cover for just how much the man cared for him, for both of them.

So now it was Sam and Dean sat side by side in the Impala and out on the road again. This time they were searching for John Winchester, not running from him.

One dead end to another, then a motel room, the man's distinctive decorating and a journal with coordinates that Dean insisted was a clue left for him but Sam rebelled at following without more information. So here they were in Jericho, California investigating deaths on a back country road. Less than a day and Sam remembered how much he detested hunting. And now he was sat in the car alone with the spectre of a Woman in White telling him that she could never go home.

-0-

She knew! How could she know? Her ghostly hand was on his chest and he felt as if his heart was being ripped through his ribcage a millimetre at a time. But that was what she dealt in, unfaithful hearts. In those first few seconds, as her ice cold presence touched him, he had time to wonder just what it was she thought she knew. What it was that he must surely need to admit to himself. Some secret that had lain hidden yet had somehow tainted his heart for her to punish him for it.

He loved Jess. He truly did and he had never cheated on her. Had never been tempted. Why would he when she was everything he could possibly want? Intelligent, after all she was attending the same college as he. Not everyone could just walk into a place at Stanford University. She was beautiful. So beautiful. From those luminous dancing eyes which held just a hint of mischievousness much as he had always seen in his brother's eyes when he was of the mood. That face, not delicately pretty but strongly attractive. The moles on her face which he loved to tell her were a star chart written for only him to read had just added to he charm. And that mouth. How could you not fall for someone with a mouth with lips so full, soft and pliant just like Dean's?

Dean. Where the hell was he?

The pain in his chest was an agony of fire as in his mind he called for his brother. The one that always came, always arrived in time to save him. Who had right from the start. Dean had been there to save him from the fire. To save him from him, that man who had been their father. The one who had tried to kill him. And now again he was in danger. All because of John Winchester. But Dean, the one who protected, looked after and loved him, he would come now. He knew he would. He was always there when Sam needed him. When they had been on the run, living in the Impala, it had been Dean that had held him tight, rocking him to sleep. When they had moved in with Bobby Singer, the man who had become Sam's dad if not Dean's, at night Sam could only sleep if he lay in his brother's arms and listened to his strong steady heart beat.

More pain in his own heart as the woman's freezing burning fingers gripped tighter.

He thought of Dean's heartbeat. How even as he grew and felt safer, even when Dean would call him, "Dude!" and make him get into his own bed, he would wake each morning laying next to Dean's heartbeat, a reproachful look on his brother's face as he woke and found him there yet again but still his arms would be surrounding him.

On leaving for college, Sam had never had a good nights sleep until that first night he slept next to Jess. She had felt so solid, so strong and steady just like Dean. Somehow she had given him that same sense of home and love.

Sam thought his heart was going to implode as Jess' face before him in his mind became Dean's and like a shot of ice water to the face Sam realised why the Woman in White found him unfaithful. He had never cheated on Jess. No. It was Dean. In his heart it was Dean that he had cheated on.

The window blew out and Sam was showered in salt and glass as the woman dispersed and there was Dean. That was just like him. As soon as the realisation hit Sam, there his brother was. Time sped up once more and Sam knew what he had to do. Ramming his foot down on the accelerator, Sam took the woman home.

"Sam!" Dean screamed as he saw the Impala 'drive' into the house and the wooden structure gave a tortured groan then collapsed concealing the car from sight. This is exactly why he had put up no resistance when his younger brother had announced at the tea table that he did not want to hunt anymore. He could not bare the thought of Sam getting hurt. That was the only reason he had agreed to go on the road with John Winchester. Why he had done things, let the man do things to him. All to keep Sam safe. But he had failed because Sam was once more on a hunt and had just crashed the car with him inside it in to the side of a building that was continuing to fall down around him.

Rushing into the crumbling wreck, he only had eyes looking for the tall lanky figure to make sure that he was okay. He ran around the car and was relieved that Sam was still breathing. Shaken, winded but still breathing. It took a while to get him out of the car through the window of the jammed door then he just stood looking at him.

The kid was dishevelled, appeared wane and exhausted but to Dean, beautiful. Suddenly he knew that they were no longer alone and he turned as his brother did to see the Woman in White staring malevolently at them. She made to move but then was distracted by the sound of water trickling down the stairs. Sam and Dean stood in silence as they saw the look of horror pass over the woman's still beautiful features at the sight of the two small children now stood staring up at her. "You came home to us, Mommy."

They wrapped their arms around her and it was no happy family reunion. Dean's eyes widened just as much as his younger brother's at the sight of the children exacting their revenge on the mother who had killed them out of jealously, who had punished them for their father's unfaithfulness.

As soon as all was quiet, the brothers moved as one to stare down at the wet patch on the rotten floor where the spectres had left this realm. Before he knew what he was doing, Dean pulled the younger man in to his arms and, after giving his cheek a determined kiss, held onto him as if he would never let go. He was ready to hold on to him even if Sam tried to push him off but Sam did not. He held on just as fiercely then relaxed. Dean's heart seemed to swell as Sam went pliant against him and appeared content to stay. No comments about being over protective. No comments about personal space. No, Sam tucked his head in to Dean's neck just as he had as a child and held on.

Feeling so much, feeling too much to contend with right then, Dean loosened his grip and said softly, "Dude, you better not have screwed with my car," and smiled as he heard that gentle familiar laugh from his brother. "Come on. Let's go home."

Reluctantly pulling out of the embrace Sam reminded him, "I have to get back to Palo Alto, I've got that interview tomorrow."

"Sure, come on. I'll take you back to the beautiful Jessica." Dean always referred to her as that. So grateful that Sam had found someone. He had been jealous at first but had known even then that the best thing for his brother was a normal life and she could give him that. Hopefully a happy one too.

Now he had co ordinates left in the journal and a place to go look for his father. He could perhaps finish what he had started all those years ago and this time make sure that John Winchester would no longer be a threat.

=0=

Sam sat and looked at his brother's profile. He had much to ponder. Dean glanced at him in askance but he just grinned back then let his head fall against the window and settled in to watch as the lights flashed against his brother's golden skin.

Dean turned back to the road knowing he was being watched. It was something he had had to get used to in those early days, Sam not taking his eyes off him as if he did Dean would disappear and leave the boy alone, defenceless. It had been there in the scared hazel eyes long in to Sam's teenage years. Now the look was different but made Dean proud just the same. Sam looking at him, looking to him and no one else. If only he could look on him in a different kind of love but Dean stopped the thought right there. This was Sam, the only clean one of the Winchester men. The only one not burdened with incestuous thoughts and feelings. He knew that what he felt for Sam in that way could never be revealed. It would only harm the younger man. Of course it would, after all he knew it was not as if his relationship with their father had been good for him. All it had done was make him hate the man more and himself worse.

Sam did not care. He knew that what he was thinking was wrong but all he knew, all he could think of, was of all the times Dean had been there for him. The dates he had broken off at high school just because Sam asked him to come home. The sacrifices he had made, the going without so Sam did not have too. The love the man had for him and now he thought about the closeness, the intimacy they had shared growing up. To Sam Dean had always been the grownup but he knew he was responsible for that too. Dean had been forced to be the adult and was something that he had taken to. Even when they had found Bobby Singer, Dean had not given up his responsibility of protecting Sam.

He owed him so much. He loved him so much and somehow Sam knew that Dean had sacrificed for him in travelling with that man. Dean would never say but Sam just knew the abuse Dean suffered, and tried to cover up, at the hands of that man was not physical. John Winchester did not use his oldest son as a punching bag. It was mental abuse and, although Sam shied away from the reality of it, he thought sexual too. It was just something in the way Dean reacted to certain comments and questions. Bobby had his suspicions too but he could not get the full facts from Dean either.

Now Sam thought about the last night he and Dean had shared a bed about a month after Sam had moved to California and could not fully hide his loneliness and downright fear from him. In the morning, after an obviously restless night, Sam had been entwined with Dean even more than usual and he had felt Dean's 'excitement' against his thigh. Sam knew he had handled it wrong. At first he had tried to ignore it but then as Dean had awoken and there was no avoiding the 'elephant in then room' he had teased Dean about it, totally oblivious to the cause, saying that he should stop dreaming about buxom redheads when in bed with his brother. 'Buxom?' Dean had queried. 'Racked!' Sam had explained and Dean had laughed it off. Thinking back, Sam thought he should have been able to recognise the lie in the laugh.

As Sam had started high school and gotten to know other people, he had come to understand that Dean had always harboured intense feelings for him but now he realised that they were much more than those of the guardian, of his brother's relentless self imposed roll in life of protecting his young brother even into adulthood . Dean loved him. He had always known that but now he thought he understood. Dean was in love with him.

And maybe, just maybe, Sam had been in love with Dean all this time too. He had always thought his equally intense relationship with Dean had been due to gratitude, and had always looked on the older man with awe, had wanted to be like him even after it was apparent that they were so different. The Woman in White had seen much deeper, had read something in his heart that Sam had possibly unknowingly kept buried through incomprehension or disbelief.

Now he felt a new ache in his heart and it was for Dean. Even now his brother was sacrificing what he wanted to take Sam back to Jess and the life he believed Sam wanted. Until tonight, Sam had truly believed that he wanted that too. Now though Dean was free of their 'father' and Sam needed to set him free from himself. No matter what he now knew or suspected, he could not give Dean what he wanted. He could not give up his own dreams, his future life with Jess. The thoughts would always be there somewhere, the what ifs, the could haves of an honest open life with Dean, but Sam was pragmatic, a realist. It could never be. Should never be. He had to somehow release Dean from this 'guardianship' even if he had to hurt him to make it happen. Dean needed a life of his own. One without Sam.

That did not mean though that he could not sit here, relaxed and content, and watch Dean as he drove them through the night.

==000==

T.B.C...