A/N: Like a lot of people here, this is my first story. Ever. I'm eager for reviews, so let me know your thoughts :) A few others have done a similar story, but I plan on taking this idea in a direction that I don't believe has been done yet. Or at least, I hope.

A/N2 (11.21.13): I like to keep things as canon as possible, but I changed a few small details here to add suspense, drama, and color. Hey, it's fanfiction right? Technically, anything goes. I also want to note that this story is unbetaed, so any mistakes are mine.

General Disclaimer: These characters are not mine, and belong to Eric Kripke, the CW, etc.. I'm just playing in his sandbox for a little while.

This chapter is from Ben's POV. Set in early summer 2017.

The first thing I become aware of is the pain. It isn't too bad, honestly, but I'm more concerned about the fact that I had no idea why my head felt like it had been cleaved in two. Slowly, feeling myself out of the fog my brain seemed to be in, I became aware of the rest of my body. My aching head, resting on a wonderfully comfortable pillow, my fingers, laid flat on something soft, my legs, heavy against what I now surmised to be a bed. As I became aware of my body, my other senses start waking up too. A rotten taste filled my mouth, like I had eaten a bunch of blue cheese and hadn't bothered to brush my teeth afterwards. An annoying, persistent beeping reached my ears, making my head throb in painful rhythm with it. Hoping to find its source and make it shut freaking up I slowly opened my eyes.

Stark whiteness greeted me, light peeking in through the closed blinds of a window at the other end of the room. A hospital. Well, that can't be anything good. Something happened to me, apparently. But what?

I slowly took in my surroundings, my head remaining still against the soft pillow. I glanced down to find my right arm in a heavy white cast. Crap. My throwing arm. An IV line snaked around my left arm, ending in my hand. Both my arms are littered with scrapes and cuts, and I had a sneaking suspicion if I had a mirror I would find them on my face too. My head throbbed particularly painfully, and I closed my eyes tightly against the pain, willing the incessant beeping to stop. The darkness behind my eyes is soothing and comfortable, and I stayed there.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I feel is the pain in my head again. I didn't think my head could ever feel this much pain, but clearly I was wrong. It was like someone took a chisel and hammer and was using my head as a piece of marble, chipping away at it to sculpt a human head. I let out a low groan of pain. A small, warm hand found my own rough, callused one. I opened my eyes at the touch, finding a woman looking at me with concern etched on her face.

"Hi, sweetheart." the woman said, a wash of relief flooding her face as the corners of her mouth twitch up in a smile.

Mom.

I want to say something and figure out what's going on. I want to let her know that I'm ok, despite the absolute agony in my head. If I can, I want to get some more drugs into my system, which I'm guessing are wearing off by the increasing amount of pain I'm feeling. I guess I haven't been using my tongue much though, because it feels like a giant fruit roll up in my mouth. I licked my lips, trying to get them unstuck.

"How?" is all I can manage to croak out, the pain in my head stopping me from making a more coherent sentence. Just trying to talk makes me realize how tired I am. That one word took way too much effort. Whatever happened, it really must have hit me hard.

"Car accident baby." The woman- Mom- responds. She ever so gentle cups her soft hand around my cheek, her thumb making small comforting strokes on my face."You were driving back from the baseball field last night. There was a deer, and you swerved off the road to hit a tree. Hit your head pretty hard." Her big brown eyes, so much like my own, start to water a bit at those last words.

I gave a tiny nod in acknowledgement. I closed my eyes as the memory of my accident assaults me. A vague, fuzzy memory of Farming View Road creeps into my mind. I drive the winding country road almost every day back from the baseball fields. I love that road, lined with giant, ancient oak trees. Despite the signs warning for deer crossings, I had never seen one and just ignored them. I rounded a corner and the last thing I expected to see was there: a deer, standing directly in the middle of my lane, his eyes glowing in my headlights as I sped towards it. Time seemed to slow down as adrenaline kicked in. Acting on instinct more than choice, I swerved hard to the left. I remembered the quickly approaching shape of a tree, a brief moment of intense pain, and then nothing.

I breathed heavily as the memory assaulted my banged up mind, the memory of the pain almost increasing the present day pain. My heart monitor was going too fast, the beeping in tandem with the pounding in my head. The pounding in my head is making my stomach swirl and before I can try and stop it, I launch forward, Mom sensing what was about to happen and ready with a basin. I vomited whatever was in my system, heaving bodily. Mom helps me lean back when my body is finished, uttering soothing words of comfort as she cleans me up.

"Hurts Mom." I say quietly. I'm spent.

"I know, sweetheart, I know. Just sleep, ok? The nurse is here and she'll make everything feel better ok? I'm right here," she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

I barely noticed a nurse appear at my side, exhaustion and nausea still gripping me. I feel a strange coolness enter my arm, and a few moments later there was a swirling sensation, and finally, nothing.

I woke with a start. I had been dreaming, a tall man with a leather jacket filling them. He had been talking to me while we sat on a bench in a park. There wasn't much more to it than that. I hugged him at some point. I think. It was all very fuzzy. But it was familiar too, as if it was more memory than dream. But I had no idea who this guy was. Weird. I dismissed it, attributing it to the mess of drugs I'm probably on.

I found Mom sleeping in a reclining chair next to my bed. Her dark hair framed her tanned face, her hands slack in her lap. Judging by the light coming through the window, it's late afternoon. I must have been here for at least a day, because I drove home late last night. Or was it the night before? Who knows. My head was heavy and fuzzy with drugs, pain, and the bandage I now sensed to be wrapped around my head. Looking around, I was reminded of the last time I was in a hospital with my Mom. The roles had been reversed then, though. I was only 10 when my Mom had been in a car accident. It was some dumbass drunk driver. He had at least come in to apologize, though.

As I replayed that day in my mind, I realized with a start that the man in my dream was the same man who had come to see us that day. Tall, with blond hair and a leather jacket. I didn't get it though. Why would I dream about him? It was a dream, right? Maybe my head was more banged up than I thought.

As if to verify that thought, my head pounded again and I squeezed my eyes shut against it. I heard a door open, and I opened my eyes to see a man with kind eyes and a mop of white hair reading off the monitors next to my bed.

"Ah! You're awake. Good!" He said jovially. "I'm Dr. Vakamundi, or just Dr. V if you like. I'm glad to see you awake after two days of sleeping. Awfully lazy of you Benjamen." He gave me a small smile. His voice was light, his soft accent pleasant in my ears. "How's the pain?" Dr. V asked, eyeing me critically.

"It sucks." I responded, squeezing my eyes shut as I take full inventory of my weary banged up body. My tongue seems to have regained its normal shape and size at least, thank God. "And it's just Ben. Please." I added as an afterthought.

"Alright Ben. I'm not surprised. You banged your head pretty bad. Baseball bat in the backseat of your car decided it wanted to sit in the front, but found your head instead. Gave you a pretty nasty crack. You have a skull fracture that required 12 stitches. It should heal nicely, though. I'm sure you've noticed your broken arm, and maybe even your bruised ribs. All in all though, Ben, you should heal nicely. You are quite lucky." I definitely didn't feel lucky.

"As with all head injuries, and especially the one you received, we'll need to monitor you for the next few days. But I'm fully confident you'll be good as new in a few weeks." Dr. V said with a reassuring smile.

I nodded my head slightly as Dr. V started examining me. He asked me to wiggle my toes, recall the date and where I was about to graduate from high school. He shone a small, bright light in my eyes, and that started a whole new session of my head pounding. I couldn't help the groan that escaped my lips. It seriously sucked. He quickly checked the staples holding my head together and told me I would have a "wicked" scar that my hair would hide. I liked Dr. V, but at that moment all I wanted was to sleep.

Surprisingly, Mom didn't wake. She must have been here for a while already to sleep through all of Dr. V's ministrations. After a last round of questions, Dr. V gave me a light pat on my shoulder, and made a few last notes on his notepad.

"Everything looks good. Rest is all I can prescribe for now. Well, that and a little medicated help.", he said with a chuckle. I glanced over to see him tap a syringe in his hand, plunging it into my IV line. He gave me a small wink when he noticed I was looking at him, his kind eyes reassuring. His smile was the last thing I registered before the warm and comfortable darkness took me under.

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I went home a few days later, a big white bandage comically wrapped around my head and a matching cast on my arm. At home, Mom confined me to my bed on instructions from Dr. V: bed rest for the next two weeks. No sports, No strain, No shenanigans. Plenty of rest.

Plenty of boring if you ask me. I passed the time watching baseball on TV. I couldn't even stare at a screen for longer than 10 minutes or so, the bright light making my head ache. A few friends stopped by after school most days to keep me company. They only ever stay long enough for Mom to shoo them away, saying I needed quiet time. Thank God I had already finished my final exams, because there was no way I would be able to study with the letters on the pages jumping around all the time. Side effect of a skull fracture: completely disoriented and slightly dizzy almost all the time. There were still a few days until graduation, and really I just needed to bid my time until then. So, I slept a lot.

And I dreamed a lot. Nearly every night my dreams were filled with the image of the man in the leather jacket. I could no longer attribute it to hospital level pain meds, having been put on lower dose stuff since coming home. Sometimes he would be doing something, like teaching me about cars. Other times he would just be looking at me, his green eyes crinkling in a smile when I told my mother a particularly corny joke. I would wake up in frustration, annoyed that I had so many dreams about a man I had met only once.

About a week after I had come home from the hospital, I took a fairly hefty dose of prescription pain meds. I had forced myself to read through the pain that day, bored out of my mind with nothing else to do. Now I was out of my mind with a headache. But with pain meds to look forward to I was planning to sleep well that night. Those drugs were sweet.

I feel asleep fully expecting to have dreams fill with the man in the leather jacket. Usually these dreams were happy, despite leaving me frustrated upon waking. Tonight, though, was a terrifying dream.

My Mom and I were in some kind of warehouse, cold and confused. Two men stood guard over us, my mother and I tied together around a pole. Trapped and helpless, I wasn't hopeless. Some where in my mind I knew that we would be rescued by the man in the leather jacket. With a sudden bang, the door to the warehouse room swung open, the man barging through it with his leather jacket swinging out behind him like a cape as he swung his fists at the men holding us captive. He beat them down, brandishing a knife. The room was seemingly clear of danger, and he cut the ropes binding my mother and I. As we stood up to follow him, my mother grabbed me from behind. She had somehow swiped the knife from the man's hand, and now held it against my throat. She snarled as the man advanced toward us. This wasn't my mother through - it couldn't be. My mother - or whatever was making my mother act like this- spoke. It was her voice, but there was an edge of savagery that my mother could never have. She said the man was my real daddy, and said my mother was a slut. She said I was the biggest mistake in my mother's life. The man spoke to me, shouted my name, and reassured me that everything was going to be ok. He told me that it wasn't my mom, and to not listen to her. He told me that she was possessed. Possessed? What the hell does that mean?

Before I could even process that information, the man threw water at us. My mother screamed as if she were on fire, the water burning her - no, burning the thing possessing her. The man tackled my mother, telling a "black eyed bitch" to get out of there. I stood frozen, panicked and shocked while I watched them struggle. The man started saying words in another language, making the thing inside my mother twitch and scream. The knife she still held was knocked out of her hand, and the man yelled at me to pick it up. The thing grabbed a sharp tool from the table she was pinned against and I watched in horror as she plunged the tool deep into her own abdomen, a devilish smirk on her face. "Finish the incantation now, Dean. Your precious woman is just a dead meat suit now". The man in the leather jacket screamed, a sound of fear, panic, and anger. It sent shivers down my spine. He said a few more words in that strange language and my mother fell to the ground as black smoke poured out of her mouth in a scream. I ran to my mother, falling to my knees and staring at the quickly growing puddle of blood beneath my mother. The man slapped me, bringing me back to my senses and sternly instructing me to grab the shotgun he had brought. I obeyed and the man- Dean- instructed me in hurried words how to use it. A man with black eyes ran towards us, and Dean told me to shoot. I do, the kick of the gun making me take several steps back.

Suddenly, we're running. Running while the man carries my mother outside, her blood coating his hands. There is a fear in his green eyes that I have never seen before. We briefly stop to unlock a door, freeing a tall man with long hair. He ran ahead, and came back with a car. We clamored in, Dean still muttering words of comfort and reassurance to me. I slammed the car door shut.

I woke with a start, the slamming of the car door in my dream acting like a sudden electrical shock to my system. Sitting up quickly and breathing heavily one thought runs through my mind: Dean. Dean Winchester. That was the man's name. It was as clear to me as day. How could I forget about Dean? Green eyed, dirty blond haired, and leather jacketed Dean. Dean, the man who lived with my mother and me for a year, a long time ago. The man who could always make my mother smile. The man who found time to throw the baseball around with me. The man who saved us from demons, and ghosts, and God knows what else because monsters were fucking real. That final realization along with finally discovering the identity of my dream stalking, leather jacket wearing man had me sweating profusely and breathing heavily.

I swung my legs out of bed, the sheets sticking to my sweaty skin. I ran a shaky hand through my hair, finding the stitches at the base of my skull where the doctors had fixed my cracked head. That must have done it. The baseball bat to the head I took must have done something to stir my memory, to make me remember someone that I had no idea how I had forgotten. But how could I forget a whole person? Especially Dean? I leaned forward to let my head rest in my hands, my elbows propped up on my knees, the rough texture of my cast rubbing against my cheek. I was sure this wasn't just a dream. The fear I felt was too real. The dreams- what I now knew to be memories- were too vivid.

"Dean." I whispered to the dark. "How could I forget you?"

I needed to find him. The need was sudden, but deep. I needed Dean. Needed him to know that I remembered him. Needed him to know how much he had meant to me in that year. More than anything, I needed to know why he wasn't here now.

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I didn't sleep the rest of the night, replaying the warehouse scene in my mind over and over again. The demon's words kept repeating in my mind. "He's your real Daddy you know". Could that be true? I had never known my father. Whenever I did imagine what my father would be like, a man that looked liked Dean would pop into my head. Of course, I didn't recognize the man as Dean until now. The question still remained, though. Was Dean my real father? Why wouldn't my mother tell me that? And most of all, where was Dean now? The never ending questions frustrated me.

When the sun peeked through my window, I went downstairs to make coffee, my laptop held under one harm. I settled on the couch in the living room with a cup of coffee, and popped open my laptop. The sudden bright light made my still healing head pound. It was seriously getting annoying. It was difficult to type with my cast covering most of my right hand, but I managed to enter Dean Winchester into the search bar.

Nothing.

I searched everywhere, my coffee gone cold, sitting forgotten on the side table. But Dean had managed to disappear from the world just as well and as suddenly as he had disappeared from my life. In desperation, I debated asking Mom about him. Somehow I knew that what had made me forget Dean had made her forget him too. I had remembered Dean, but my mother was still oblivious. I fully intended to keep it that way as well, at least until I could learn what had happened.

Frustrated, I pulled out my phone and texted my friend Jack. He was the kid people went to when they needed a fake. He knew his technology, and people knew him for it.

Hey man I have a favor to ask. I'm looking for an old friend, and Google's not helping. Can you see if you can find anyone by the name of Dean Winchester for me?

I sent the text, tapping my foot impatiently on the floor. It was still early, and a Saturday at that. No way he would answer for at least a few hours.

I huffed out a defeated sigh, letting my head fall back against the back of the couch. "Where are you, Dean?" I whispered in frustration to the ceiling. I closed my eyes, weary from staring at a computer screen, my head aching from the bright light.

My need to find Dean was like a fire burning in my chest. But how do you find a man that disappeared? Was Dean even still alive?