Season Two

Episode Seventeen: Forget Me Not

by Irismay42

Story by Grkgrl88 and Irismay42

Part Two

Rest Stop Motel, Phoenix, AZ

“Who the hell am I?”

“Dean –” Sam froze, worst fears suddenly realized, the confused, angry, frightened look on his older brother’s face so out of place there that he felt suddenly lightheaded. He held up his hands toward Dean and took a cautious step forward, as if approaching an injured animal, cornered and afraid.

Dean certainly had that air about him right now.

When Dean didn’t back away or try to bolt for the door, Sam took a breath and another step forward. “Dean, it’s okay –”

Dean’s brow scrunched in confusion. “Why d’you keep calling me that?” he asked, voice small and more than a little bewildered.

“You – you really don’t remember?” Sam swallowed hard. “That’s your name,” he assured his brother gently. “Dean Winchester.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Like the rifle?”

It was Sam’s turn to frown. “Uh. Yeah. You remember that?”

Dean shrugged. “Apparently. So if – if I’m Dean Winchester…who the hell are you?”

“I – I’m your brother – Sam.”

Dean blinked at him. “You’re my brother?”

Sam nodded. “Kid brother, yeah.” He tried to smile reassuringly, but didn’t quite manage it.

“Why don’t I remember you?” Dean asked, posture relaxing slightly as he allowed Sam to take another step toward him. “Hell, why don’t I remember me?”

“You were injured,” Sam explained. “Knocked unconscious. I think maybe – something happened – something –”

“That made me forget who I am?”

Sam nodded again. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Well that sucks,” Dean muttered, swallowing, eyes beginning to dart around the room. “How – how did I get injured?”

Sam paused. How did he explain this? Dude, we think a demon murdered two people to get to their daughter because she’s a psychic from a cursed family, just like me. Sam thought not, somehow. “You were injured on – on a job,” he finally managed with an apologetic little smile.

Dean suspended his nervous examination of the motel room long enough to meet Sam’s gaze. “A job?”

Sam nodded.

“So – so what do I do? For a job?”

Sam sighed. “Dean, you might wanna sit down for this. It could take some time.”

Dean shook his head impatiently. “I don’t wanna sit down!” he burst out, and Sam could see he was shifting rapidly from frightened to frustrated. “I don’t know who I am!”

Sam put out a tentative hand toward him, but Dean shook it away before it even connected.

“How do I even know you’re telling me the truth?” the older brother demanded. “You could be lying to me! Hell, you could be the one who did this to me!”

“Dean –”

“Stop calling me that!”

“It’s your name!”

“How do I know that? Huh?” Dean looked up into Sam’s eyes, almost as bewildered and freaked out as his own. His tone softened slightly at the concern he read in the younger man’s face. “How do I know that?” he repeated, raking trembling fingers through his hair. “For all I know, you – you could be some sick freak who – who I picked up hitch-hiking and – and the next thing I know there’s gonna be a severed finger in my French fries…”

Sam actually chuckled a little at that. “It’s Sam, not Rutger, dude!” he protested, before suddenly scrunching his forehead and looking hard at his brother. “You remember that movie?”

Dean paused for a second mid-freak, the look of confusion deepening on his face. “Huh?” he muttered. “I – what? Uh. Yeah, I guess.”

Sam’s face lit up. “Dean, this is good!” he burst out. “This means you’ve not forgotten everything!” He reached out and put a hand on Dean’s shoulder, but his brother jumped back as if Sam’s fingers were electrified.

“Don’t –” he began, shaking his head. “I don’t know you. You – you could have kidnapped me! You could be holding me prisoner! There –” He stopped suddenly, eyes lighting up. “There could be people looking for me! Somebody’s gonna be missing me –”

He made a sudden lunge for the door, grabbing the handle and tugging it open just a fraction before Sam managed to get a shoulder between his brother and freedom, roughly shouldering the door shut with a loud thud. “Dean,” he burst out, a hint of desperation in his voice, “right now I’m pretty much the only ‘somebody’ you got!”

Dean stopped dead, eyes locking with his brother’s, one hand still braced against the door.

Sam winced. “I’m sorry, man,” he said, tone softening. “I didn’t mean – I didn’t mean that to come out – like that…” He trailed off, leaning hard against the door and shaking his head.

Dean backed away a step, just staring up into Sam’s face. “You’re really my brother?” he asked quietly.

Sam met his gaze, nodding. “The one and only.”

Dean took a breath. “Where – where are we?”

Sam straightened, relieved that Dean had asked him a question he could actually answer with some confidence. “Arizona,” he replied emphatically.

A mirthless laugh escaped Dean’s lips. “Great,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. “We can visit the Grand Canyon while we’re here.”

Sam frowned at him, and he merely shrugged.

“I have no idea what I just said,” he admitted, shaking his head.

“You know what Dean knows,” Sam said, slowly formulating a theory. “Deep down. It’s all still there. I know it. We just gotta get it back out.”

Dean looked at him. “How?” he asked, slumping back onto his bed in defeat. “And how do you know that?”

It was Sam’s turn to shrug, settling himself onto his own bed, facing his brother. “I just know,” he said, features hardening. “We’ve been through so much…together. I’m not losing my brother to something like this. Amnesia? Seriously. How soap opera is that?”

Dean chuckled a tad hysterically as he reclined a little on the bed, hands sliding behind him to brace himself upright. His expression changed rapidly to alarm as he snatched his right hand back from where it had slipped beneath his pillow, a large, wickedly-sharp hunting knife inexplicably grasped in his fingers. “What the…?”

“Ah,” Sam said, wincing apologetically. “About that…”

* * * *

All things considered, Dean took the story of his and Sam’s lives pretty well.

At least, he didn’t scream and go lock himself in the bathroom. Which was reassuring. And only on a couple of occasions did he blanche or incline his head slightly to one side as if he didn’t quite believe what Sam was telling him.

“A demon?” was the first real comment he made throughout Sam’s narration, an unnervingly neutral expression on his face as he took in all that his brother had told him. “A demon burnt our mother on the ceiling because she got in the way of some evil plan he’d concocted involving kids from families who are cursed due to the previous misdeeds of their ancestors, resulting in our dad going a little psycho and raising us to be demon hunters, leaving you with death visions and me with nightmares about fire. Right?”

Sam nodded mutely.

“And we’re in Phoenix because another of this demon’s ‘kids’ might be in danger due to his having escaped from a scuttled ship where we imprisoned him using a magic ring just after a mob boss had you shot with a poisoned bullet.”

Sam nodded again.

“And meanwhile, our dad’s off doing…what exactly?”

Sam shrugged and Dean nodded.

“But that’s okay because he’s always taking off on his own, has done ever since we were little kids, but he always shows up again sooner or later, usually to save you from being choked and me from being thrown into a wall, because that’s pretty much what we do for a job – saving people, hunting things –”

“Family business,” Sam interjected helpfully.

Dean raised an eyebrow, nodding calmly. “Sure,” he acquiesced hollowly. “Because we hunt evil. And I have amnesia because I got whammied while we were checking out the possible damsel in distress’s parents’ murder scene, but, even though I can’t remember my own name or my own brother, I can still remember the French fry scene from The Hitcher, that Winchester is a type of rifle, and the fact that the Grand Canyon’s in Arizona.”

Sam positively beamed at him.

“I miss anything?”

Sam shook his head. “Note perfect, bro.”

Dean scratched the back of his neck, a high-pitched, near-hysterical laugh escaping his lips. “Well that makes everything so much clearer,” he muttered sarcastically, eyes and fingers lingering on the hunting knife still nestled atop the motel bed’s dingy brown comforter.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Sam observed sympathetically, causing another hysterical laugh to emanate from his brother.

“Sure,” Dean agreed. “It’s not every day you discover you’re whole life is completely whacked and you belong to a family of freaks.”

“Hey!” Sam objected. “We’re not freaks! We’re just –” he searched for an adequate description, “– differently oriented is all.”

Dean snorted. “Oh you can say that again,” he agreed readily.

“Anyway,” Sam continued, trying to move things along a little. “Now you know who you are, where you are and what you are –”

“– A freak.”

“– Then maybe you can try to remember what happened at the Medina house.”

Dean’s brow furrowed at that, trying to sort through the odd jumble of images and half-memories swirling around in his muddled brain. “There was a –” he began, screwing up his eyes in concentration, “– a bright light like – like a hundred camera flashes going off at once.”

Sam nodded a little too enthusiastically. “That’s good!” he encouraged his brother. “That’s really good, Dean! And it confirms what Maisie said too.”

Dean arched an eyebrow. “Maisie?”

“The girl who’s house-sitting at the Medinas’.”

“She was there? When it happened?”

“Yeah. She said there was a bright flash and then you collapsed…”

“So what I remembered gave us exactly zero new information?” Dean virtually growled, knuckles whitening around the hilt of the hunting knife. “Goddamnit I’m about as much use as – as fake art in a crappy motel room!”

Suddenly Dean’s arm became a blur of motion, the hunting knife whistling through the air past Sam’s ear and embedding itself with a soft thunk into something behind him.

Sam blinked at his surprised-looking brother for a second before cautiously turning to assess the damage Dean had done.

“Wow,” he muttered, eyes lighting on the knife, which was buried up to its hilt in a poster-print reproduction of Edvard Munch’s The Scream hung clumsily on the wall behind him; the blade was lodged dead center between the screaming man’s eyes. “Nice shot.”

He turned slowly back toward Dean, who was staring at his handiwork a little dumbfounded.

“Don’t tell me,” the older brother sighed. “I ran off to become a circus knife-thrower when I was ten.”

Sam shook his head, the ghost of a smile playing with the corners of his mouth. “No. But I’d never play you at darts for money.”

Dean chuckled slightly, glancing from his brother to his hand and back to the knife. “Good to know,” he murmured.

Sam bit his lip uncertainly, the droop of Dean’s head as he gazed back down at his hand causing something to shift inside of him. “Maybe I oughta take you to the hospital,” he said slowly, mentally cringing as Dean looked up sharply.

“No,” the older brother stated emphatically, spine straightening as he sat bolt upright on the bed. “No hospitals! I hate those friggin’ places…”

A slightly wounded look flickered across Sam’s face. “What, you remember that but you don’t remember me?”

Dean shrugged. “I just – I just get the feeling bad things have happened to me in hospitals.”

Sam couldn’t really argue with that. “Yeah,” he said softly, eyes downcast. “I don’t think you’d even really got over the whole thing with the Alp before this happened…”

“Alp?”

Sam nodded distractedly. “Kidnapped you when I left you in hospital with a dislocated shoulder. Locked you up in a nuthouse and fed off of your worst memories.”

“Worst memories?” Dean echoed, frowning. “So first I get forced to remember crap I don’t wanna remember, and then I get forced to forget everything?”

“Yeah, well, we’re not the luckiest family in the world,” Sam muttered. “That is pretty weird though, even by our standards.”

“Apparently ‘Weird’ is my middle name, dude,” Dean observed, rubbing a hand across his face tiredly.

Sam didn’t fail to notice the fatigue reflected in his brother’s eyes or the defeated slump to his shoulders. “Maybe you just need to rest a little –”

“No,” Dean disagreed firmly. “I need to be doing something – something to fix this. I can’t just sit here hoping it’s gonna go away – that I’ll wake up tomorrow and it’ll all have been a bad dream.”

“What do you suggest?” Sam asked gently. “Other than getting you to a doctor and seeing if there’s a medical solution.”

“There’s no medical solution to this,” Dean stated shortly, eyes straying to the knife still embedded in the wall. “Maybe…” he continued, voice rapidly losing the confidence it had held seconds earlier. “Maybe if we went out – drove around – maybe go back to the Medina house; maybe something will jog my memory…?”

Sam abruptly jumped to his feet, causing Dean to shrink back a little on the bed in surprise. “I’m such an idiot!” the younger brother exclaimed, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand.

“If you say so, dude.”

“Your car! Sam continued excitedly, as if Dean hadn’t spoken, grabbing his brother’s arm and yanking him to his feet none-too-gently. “If you don’t remember me, you’re sure to remember your car…!”

* * * *

Dean stood staring at the Impala for a full thirty seconds before finally exclaiming, “I drive that old bucket of bolts?” an expression of pure disbelief twisting his features.

Sam stepped closer to the old Chevy, inexplicably affronted on the vehicle’s behalf. Gently patting her shiny black hood, he bent slightly toward one of her headlights and softly crooned, “Don’t listen, baby. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

Dean frowned. “You two need to get a room?” he asked, Sam returning his frown triple-fold as his hand still lingered on the Chevy’s immaculate paintwork. He straightened awkwardly, shaking his head in disbelief.

“No!” he blurted, his cheeks coloring bright pink in flustered embarrassment. “I didn’t – I don’t – I mean – you love this car, Dean! And I mean love it! I was so sure if you remembered anything it’d be her…”

“‘Her?’” Dean echoed, frown deepening. “It’s a car, Sam!”

Sam almost flinched at that, tugging open the driver’s door with the customary creak that made Dean wince.

“And an old car at that!” the older brother continued. “Maybe would could trade this old rust bucket in for something a little newer?”

Sam shook his head and gritted his teeth, fondly patting the Chevy’s dash as he curled himself into the driver’s seat. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he muttered. “Don’t hold it against him. I’ll get him back to you, don’t you worry…”

* * * *

“Any of this looking familiar?”

They’d been driving around for a good hour now, early evening shadows beginning to lengthen as Dean gazed hopelessly out of the Impala’s windows, expression flickering from blank to frustrated and back again in the space of a heartbeat.

“No,” Dean murmured softly for what felt like the hundredth time. “Nothing.”

Even the Medina house hadn’t elicited much of a response, shades drawn and Maisie’s Mini no longer in the driveway, leaving the new Impala to collect dust alone.

Dean had merely grunted, shaken his head and continued humming this weird little sing-song tune that Sam had noticed he’d been singing softly to himself since they’d first gotten into the car. Sam hadn’t asked about it – Dean singing in the car was one of those habits Sam had thought he hated until this moment, when it suddenly felt comforting, as if the brother sitting next to him was his usual self and everything was fine.

Of course, Sam was only too aware that everything was very far from fine, if only by virtue of the fact that Dean hadn’t asked to drive once on this little jaunt. Sam had no doubt Dean would know how to drive; he just didn’t seem to want to.

So Sam left him to his thoughts, let him hum that weird little nursery rhyme tune unchallenged, and contented himself with pointing out any sights that Dean might recognize.

“Oh, hey!” Sam exclaimed suddenly, startling Dean out of his reverie. “That school!” He pointed to a large white building off to their left, Stars and Stripes hanging limply from the flagpole out front as the stiflingly still air failed to muster up even the slightest breeze to ruffle the fabric.

Dean followed the direction of Sam’s excited finger. “Yeah?”

“We went to that school!” Sam exclaimed. “I think you would have been fifteen, maybe sixteen. Dad let us ride out a whole semester here while he investigated something that was killing tourists out in the desert nearby. Think it was a chupacabra or something.” He shrugged. “Can’t remember.”

“No,” Dean agreed darkly, gazing up at the anonymous-looking school. “Me neither.”

Sam flinched, inwardly kicking himself, before plastering an over-enthusiastic grin on his face in a valiant attempt to cover his thoughtless stumble. “Think this is where you had that enormous crush on your English teacher – what was her name? Miss Onizuka? You kept trying to learn Shakespeare to impress her…”

Dean cast him a sidelong glance. “You’re making that up.”

Sam shook his head vehemently. “Nuh-uh!” he insisted, screwing his face up to accurately mimic that of a lovelorn teenager while placing one hand over his heart. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, Miss Onizuka…?”

“You know Shakespeare wrote that about a guy, right?” Dean informed his brother flatly, frowning in mild surprise at himself that he would know something like that.

Sam seemed equally shocked. “Ye-ah,” he said slowly. “I know that. Can’t believe you know that though…”

Dean squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “That must have been some crush I had on that English teacher,” he muttered, watching the school disappear down the street in the side mirror.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Who knew that’s all it took to make you study?”

The silence that followed remained unbroken for several blocks while Sam tried desperately to think of alternative ways to phrase the question, “Anything look familiar yet?” while Dean took to tracing his finger in little spirals on the seat next to him, not even bothering to look out the window anymore.

“It’ll come back,” Sam said eventually, casting a lingering sidelong glance in his brother’s direction.

Dean didn’t look up. “What if it doesn’t?”

Sam turned back to face the road. “It will,” he insisted. “We’ll find a way. We always do. I promise.”

Dean nodded slightly, finger still drawing invisible patterns on the Impala’s upholstery, the subdued rhythm of that little tune he’d been humming eventually returning as an accompaniment to the Chevy’s throaty rumble.

Sam listened to his brother’s distracted voice for several more blocks before finally asking, “Dude, what the hell is that you’re singing?”

Dean looked up, startled, as if he’d not realized he was humming out loud. He blinked a couple of times before shrugging one shoulder dismissively. “Can’t get that friggin’ tune out of my head,” he mumbled, finally reaching out and snapping on the radio just to drown it out. Bad English’s Forget Me Not instantly began to crackle out of the speakers, and within seconds Dean was drumming his fingers against his thighs in perfect time with Deen Castronovo.

“I will be your shadow when you walk away. Forget me not, forget me not…” Dean began singing along to the chorus, and again Sam cast a bemused look in his direction. So the lyrics to the chorus weren’t exactly hard to pick up, he reasoned, but then Dean started in on the next verse, note and lyric perfect, fingers still beating out the rhythm against his leg, and there was no way Sam could explain that.

“Dude, that’s just freaky, you know that?” Sam burst out eventually, causing Dean to desist immediately from belting out the rest of his homage to John Waite.

“Freaky how?” Dean demanded defensively, bottom lip pushed out in what on anyone else but Dean would have definitely been classed as a pout.

“That you remember that song!” Sam replied. “Just like you remembered that movie; how to throw a knife; that Winchester was a type of rifle. Dean, you’re remembering everything but your actual life!”

Dean looked away, eyes fixing absently on the radio.

Sam felt an immediate surge of guilt that he’d been the cause of that little-boy-lost expression on his brother’s face. “Dean –” he began, before switching tracks in an attempt to alleviate the tension. “I’ll tell you what else is freaky.” He grinned, looking back over at his brother, who met his gaze uncertainly.

“What?”

Sam’s grin widened. “You never told me you were into Big Hair Rock.”

Dean’s cheeks reddened, eyes skittering back to the radio. “It has a great guitar riff!” he protested defensively. “And besides, it’s not like I’m listening to Bon Jovi or anything!”

Sam’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he managed to choke out, “Okay, you don’t remember [i]me[/i], your own brother, but you remember Bon Jovi?” He shook his head, pretending to be affronted. “Okay I take it all back. You are a freak!”

Unfortunately, what Sam had intended as lighthearted ribbing didn’t quite have the desired effect on Dean.

Straightening considerably before twisting right round to face Sam, Dean suddenly burst out, “Well maybe you’re not really my brother! Maybe that’s why I can’t remember you!” before clenching his jaw as if he was afraid his teeth might spontaneously fall out, cheeks almost as red as the encroaching sunset.

Sam sucked down a breath as if he was drowning, finally managing to choke out, “You really think that? You really think I’m some sicko who likes to kidnap amnesiacs for kicks? Huh?”

Dean didn’t answer, merely snapped off the radio and turned back to face the road, arms crossed sullenly over his chest.

Sam shook his head in disbelief, patience beginning to wear extremely thin despite his best efforts. “I’m not even gonna dignify that with a response.”

“You just did, Sam,” Dean retorted between clenched teeth.

The two of them fumed in silence for a while, the only sound besides the growl of the Impala being the occasional impatient tap of Sam’s fingers against the steering wheel.

Determined he wasn’t going to be the first to cave, Sam squinted furtively at his brother, who had never been able to hold a grudge for long, even when they were kids.

Of course, this Dean might be able to hold a grudge until Doomsday for all Sam knew…

“Do we always argue like an old married couple?” Dean asked suddenly.

Sam tried not to let his relief show too much in the tiny chuckle that escaped his lips. “Yeah, pretty much.” He glanced sideways at Dean, who was fighting a sheepish smile. “Listen,” Sam continued. “You hungry?”

“No,” Dean replied, still trying to keep Pissed Off Face in place but failing miserably. “Yes.”

“Okay then.” Sam smiled slightly to himself, casting his eyes about in the hopes of finding a nearby source of nourishment. “Aha!” he said suddenly, spotting a convenience store on the next corner and hurriedly pulling the Impala up into the four-space parking lot to the side of the low white building.

Switching off the engine, he turned to face his brother, who was squinting at the store almost as if he recognized it. “You okay?” Sam asked uncertainly.

Dean nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Despite not having a clue who I am and being driven around a place I don’t know by a brother I don’t recognize in a car that’s probably older than I am.”

“It’s twelve years older than you are,” Sam said meekly, “and you should look so good when you’re her age.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Seriously, dude, what’s with you and this car? I’ll bet you almost never get laid…”

Sam opened his mouth as if to refute that accusation, but instead thought better of it, loathe to dislodge the almost-familiar twinkle in Dean’s eyes. Instead he settled for sighing dramatically and asking, “So what do you want to eat?”

Without even thinking about it, Dean replied, “Anything as long as it’s not green and has lots of onions. And M&Ms. The peanut ones.”

Sam smiled to himself as he shoved open the driver’s door. “Lost your memory my ass,” he muttered. “You’re just faking so I spring for dinner.”

Dean returned his smile ruefully, as if he dearly wished that were true. “You want me to come with?” he asked as Sam unfolded himself from the car.

“Nah,” the younger brother said, shaking his head. “I’ll only be a second.” He made to stride off across the parking lot before pausing and leaning back into the car. “I don’t need to handcuff you or anything do I?”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “I’m into that kinda stuff…?” he asked hesitantly.

Sam chuckled. “I meant in case you decided to make a break for freedom,” he said, shaking his head.

Dean didn’t reply to that, just shrugged a little.

“So you don’t think I’m an evil amnesic-kidnapping psycho anymore?”

Dean glanced sideways at him. “M&Ms,” he said. “Peanut.”

Sam grinned down at him before withdrawing his head from the car window and heading over toward the entrance to the store.

Dean watched him go thoughtfully, trying to wrap his head around how the hell he could have a little brother who was at least four inches taller than he was. That was just so wrong on so many levels. And the kid was built, too. Could probably wipe the floor with Dean without breaking a sweat… But then he remembered how he’d thrown that knife and, glancing around to check no one was watching him, he flexed his left arm experimentally, grinning like a kid in a candy store when he felt his biceps tauten. Wipe the floor with me, my ass! Hell, I’m some kinda goddamn Adonis over here!

The euphoria was all too brief however, as he suddenly realized he had no clue how he’d built up his admittedly impressive musculature. Did he work out? Did he play sports? Was he one of those guys who hung out at the gym for hours on end just admiring himself in the mirror? God he hoped not. Maybe this whole hunting thing was what kept him in shape… Why couldn’t he remember?

This amnesia thing was seriously starting to piss him off.

Frustrated, he slammed his right elbow into the car door, yelping as he discovered that the Impala was actually a hell of lot better built than he was. He sighed again, and decided to pass the time by exploring the unfamiliar space he found himself in.

The first thing that caught his attention was the old shoebox full of CDs and worn tapes that was lodged at his feet. Metallica… AC/DC…Led Zeppelin? Wow, Sam sure had odd taste in music… Or maybe that was his taste in music. Did he like Led Zeppelin? He had no idea.

His attention wandered next to the glove box, pulling it open warily, not entirely sure what he was going to find in there.

He certainly hadn’t expected to find a stash of fake IDs. There were dozens of them – Homeland Security, FBI, Wildlife Service, CDC – all with either his or Sam’s photo staring up out of them, and all with ridiculous-sounding aliases that, even in his befuddled state, Dean didn’t think anyone in their right mind would fall for… Joey Ramone, Robert Plant, Dr. James Hendrix… Reverend Judas Priest? Seriously?

He was about to give up on delving deeper into the glove box, pretty sure he didn’t want to know what else was buried in there, when he came across another ID card, this one bearing a photograph of someone who was neither Sam nor Dean, an older guy who looked somehow familiar.

Dean stared at the photo for a long moment, willing himself to remember, minutely studying every detail of the unknown man’s dark hair, graying beard and dark inscrutable eyes. The card was emblazoned with the logo for the Pittsburgh Fire Department, the name “Fire Marshal John Entwistle” printed in neat little letters beneath the photograph. Somehow Dean doubted that was this man’s real name.

Think, dammit! You know this guy!

Then it hit him.

The dream.

This was the guy from the dream.

This was the guy from the fire dream. The guy who handed him the baby… take your brother outside as fast as you can…

A single loud bang followed by a woman’s anguished scream drew Dean’s attention away from the ID card still clutched in his trembling fingers.

Sam?

* * * *

Sam stood with his hands raised nervously above his head, eyes skittering to the middle-aged woman standing behind the counter who was valiantly trying to do the same, despite every instinct within her telling her to tend to her husband, who was currently slumped on the floor, back to the counter, blood seeping from the bullet wound to his upper arm.

“Just give me the goddamn money, lady!”

“Take it easy!” Sam advised the young man currently hopping from foot to foot in front of him, 9mm raised in two shaking hands pointed directly at the woman clerk.

The kid’s red-rimmed owlish eyes cut to Sam nervously, skin sweaty and pale beneath the black hoodie pulled up over his messy blond hair. “Don’t be a hero, pal!” the guy advised right back. “I just want the money!”

“Don’t give the punk a dime, Anna!” the storeowner growled defiantly from his position on the floor. “Not one cent!”

“Shut up old man!” the would-be robber yelled at the guy on the floor, adjusting the trajectory of the 9mm so that it was pointing at his forehead. “Next shot splatters your brain across the counter!”

“Hey, hey! Just calm down!” Sam tried to placate the kid. “No one needs to get hurt here!”

He raised his hands in front of him and took a hesitant step forward, instantly regretting the action when he abruptly found himself looking down the barrel of the handgun.

“Shut up! Just shut up!” the kid yelled, hand trembling almost uncontrollably around the gun’s grip as he brought it around in a wide arc from Sam’s head to the storekeeper’s chest. “For the last time, gimme the goddamn money or I –”

The remainder of the robber’s sentence was bit off as the storekeeper’s wife – Anna – suddenly lobbed a can of bug spray at him which bounced off his head, eliciting a string of muffled curses and causing the gun to abruptly swing around until it was pointing right between her eyes. “You bitch! You’ll pay for that!” the kid screamed, finger tightening on the trigger just as Sam decided to take advantage of the distraction and made a grab for the weapon. But he wasn’t quite fast enough, suddenly finding the still-warm barrel pressed right up against his forehead.

“I told you –” the kid burst out, finger tightening on the 9mm’s trigger, “– not to be a hero!”

There then followed one of those moments where time seems to slow down to a crawl while simultaneously speeding up to such a speed that Sam wasn’t entirely sure what happened next.

He was pretty sure he closed his eyes as the sweaty-palmed would-be robber’s face twisted into an angry grimace, his finger squeezing the 9mm’s trigger in a kind of slo-mo haze of inevitability.

Next thing Sam was aware of was a gunshot ringing out through the store and the unmistakable sound of a bullet whizzing past his ear.

Quite surprised not to have a gaping bullet hole in his forehead, Sam opened his eyes in what felt like the space of a single heartbeat, only to be met by a sight that he would never be able to rationalize as something that could have happened in the time it took him to blink his eyes.

The robber was lying face-down on the black and white tiled floor, Dean inexplicably sitting on top of him, left hand yanking the youth’s wrists halfway up his back while his right expertly ejected the clip from the kid’s 9mm, rendering the weapon harmless and ensuring that no more stray bullets were going to be heading in his baby brother’s direction any time soon.

“First mistake?” Dean said, carefully examining the 9mm one more time as the pasty-faced youth squirmed underneath him. “Being stupid enough to come in here and point a gun at someone.” He leaned down towards the punk menacingly, his mouth right next to the kid’s ear. “Second mistake?” he continued, voice as low and threatening as Sam had ever heard it. “Being stupid enough to come in here and point a gun at my little brother. Now that was really stupid.”

The kid groaned, still weakly attempting to twist out of Dean’s grip while Sam just stared at his big brother open-mouthed.

“How – how did you know?” he managed to stutter out. “To come in here – and to – how did you know what to do? How to disarm the guy? What to do with the gun?” Sam swallowed, a hopeful glint in his eye. “Maybe it’s coming back? Your memory?”

Dean looked up at him blankly for a second, before shrugging his shoulders and casually bringing the robber’s gun down on the back of the kid’s head. The kid grunted, before lapsing into unconsciousness, and Dean proceeded to toss the 9mm up onto the shop counter where it landed with a hard thunk in front of the startled lady clerk. He screwed his face up into a disapproving grimace, shaking his head and muttering, “I hate guns!”

Sam frowned down at him. “Or not.”

“Anna! Dial 911!” the storeowner suddenly ordered weakly from his position on the ground, his wife snatching up the phone and doing exactly that, hands still shaking.

“Third time this month we’ve been robbed,” the storeowner explained, turning his attention first to Sam and then to Dean. “I can’t thank you boys enough. Don’t get too many heroes around here –”

Sam laughed nervously, glancing at his brother. “We’re not heroes,” he said modestly, before adding, “And Dean, I think we really better be going. Y’know. Before the cops arrive.”

The storeowner mirrored Dean’s raised eyebrow, and Sam laughed even more nervously.

“Don’t wanna spend all night making statements,” he added with an awkward smile.

The storeowner’s face split into a pained grin. “Unsung heroes, huh?” he said, nodding his head as if he understood completely. “Wanna maintain your secret identities?” He winked, forcing even more nervous laughter from Sam. “I get it.”

Looking about himself, Sam spied a display of cheap kids’ toys and, grabbing a fluorescent pink skipping rope, he knelt down next to Dean, taking hold of the robber’s wrists and tying them firmly together.

Satisfied that the offender was now secured, Dean got off him, allowing Sam to drag the kid back against the wall where he knotted the remaining length of rope around a conveniently located water pipe.

Without really thinking about it, Dean moved over toward the wounded storeowner, kneeling down in front of him and gently moving aside the tattered fabric of his shirt sleeve to assess the damage to the man’s arm.

Sam glanced over at him, slightly unnerved by the look of absolute trust in the storeowner’s eyes engendered, Sam had no doubt, by the air of complete confidence Dean was currently exuding.

Dean smiled reassuringly at the injured man. “Hey, Mr. –?”

“Jorge,” the storeowner replied with a wan smile. “No ‘Mr.’ necessary for you boys.”

Dean’s smile widened. “Well – Jorge,” he continued, “I had worse than this when I was in grade school. Seriously, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Just a little flesh wound is all –”

Sam shuddered involuntarily, vivid memories of a hangar and Dean saying those exact same words to him suddenly exploding in his brain.

The words held no such resonance for Dean, and he merely grabbed a nearby pack of diapers, ripped them open with his teeth, extracted one and carefully positioned it over Jorge’s wound before taking hold of the storeowner’s good hand and placing it firmly on top. “Keep pressure on it like this,” he instructed the man. “By the time the paramedics get here, you’ll be well on the way to having a cool new scar.”

Jorge grinned lopsidedly. “Scars I got,” he said, glancing back at his wife before lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Just don’t have any pretty ladies to show ’em off to.”

Dean’s attention drifted to Anna, who was still clutching the phone to her chest, face the color of Christmas morning snow, seemingly too terrified to approach her stricken husband in case he should suddenly stop breathing.

“Jorge,” Dean said, looking back at the storeowner. “I think you have one pretty lady right here who’s more than interested in just your scars, man.”

He beckoned to Anna, who hesitantly approached after finally releasing her hold on the telephone, carefully kneeling down in front of her husband before pressing her forehead against his.

“You die on me, I’ll kill you, you stupid old man,” she muttered through the tears suddenly streaming down her waxy cheeks.

Jorge chuckled, kissing his wife a little self-consciously on the cheek. “You don’t get no insurance if you kill me, old woman,” he replied, stroking his wife’s hair tenderly.

When Dean merely smiled at the couple rather than announcing his sudden need to vomit, Sam was tempted to repeat a line he’d tossed at him many, many hunts ago: “Who are you, and what have you done with my brother?” But right now he figured that would be in pretty poor taste, so settled for grabbing Dean’s arm, pulling him to his feet and beginning to tug him insistently toward the exit.

“We gotta go,” he whispered urgently in Dean’s ear. “Now. Before the cops get here.”

“Why?” Dean asked uncertainly. “We’re the good guys!”

Sam shook his head at that. “Yeah, well, they find us here and – and – well, it would be bad. Very bad.”

“But we didn’t even get the food you came in here for!” Dean protested, eyeing the provisions Sam had dropped onto the counter at the appearance of the pasty-faced would-be robber.

Jorge, hearing Dean’s last comment, nodded his head towards the counter. “Take it,” he said, beaming at them. “It’s on the house.”

* * * *

Sam tapped his fingers against the Impala’s steering wheel, unconsciously in time with that odd little nursery rhyme tune Dean had resumed humming the minute they got back into the car.

“So you really don’t know how you knew how to disarm that kid or empty his gun?” he asked for maybe the third time since they’d shagged ass out of Jorge and Anna’s store.

Dean looked up from his examination of the contents of the brown paper grocery bag slung on the seat between them, merely shrugging again, a blank look on his face.

Sam nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe it’s like muscle memory,” he hazarded. “Maybe Dad’s training is so ingrained in us it was just instinct.” He paused, eyes skittering briefly sideways. “Instinct to protect me.”

“You make me sound like a pitbull, Sam,” Dean observed, grinning at the family-sized pack of peanut M&Ms he’d found at the bottom of the grocery bag.

Sam sighed. “Sometimes I think that was Dad’s intention.”

Dean looked up again. “Huh?”

Sam shook his head dismissively. “Never mind.”

“Look,” Dean said with a blasé shrug of his shoulders. “I heard a gunshot and a scream come outta the store my kid brother had just gone into. I just did what anyone would have done, Sammy.”

Sam’s attention snapped instantly to his brother, his foot slamming against the Impala’s brake as he nearly missed a red light. “What did you just call me?”

Dean, hand still braced against the dash after Sam’s sudden maneuver had caused him to have serious issues with inertia, blinked blankly at his kid brother, who was staring at him as if he’d sprouted a second nose. “Huh?”

“You called me ‘Sammy’!” Sam pointed out, a goofy grin lighting up his face. “Why’d you call me that?”

Dean’s face contorted into a mask of concentration as he tried to remember the answer Sam was obviously expecting to that question. Finally, he had to admit defeat. “I don’t know,” he sighed, quirking an eyebrow and casting a sidelong glance in his brother’s direction. “I don’t call you Sammy?” He sounded surprised, slowly turning back to face the road as the light changed to green. “Well I should. It suits you. You look like a Sammy.”

Sam’s grin widened, and for the first time in a long, long time he was actually happy to have his brother call him by that hated old nickname.

Rest Stop Motel, Phoenix, AZ

“Goddammit!”

Dean opened his eyes as the pencil Sam had launched across the room bounced off the wall above his brother’s head and landed, point downward, in the pillow about an inch to the left of Dean’s eye.

He raised his head slightly off the bed to check Sam wasn’t about to launch any more projectile stationery at him before observing, “You know the lead’s gonna be broke all the way through that now, right? Is that any way to treat your school supplies, Junior?”

Sam scowled at him over the screen of the laptop. “It’s like the Medina family never existed!” he growled in frustration, gesturing wildly at the computer. “I can’t seem to dig up anything on them other than what we already know – they were murdered!”

“You said they were ‘unremarkable,’ right?” Dean raised himself up onto his elbows. “Maybe ‘unremarkable’ doesn’t get splattered all over the internet.”

Sam sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he conceded, turning to face Dean, away from the computer and the rusty metal motel table. “It’d make sense though,” he continued, eyes downcast as he rubbed his hands together uncomfortably. “If their daughter were like me. One of the cursed kids –”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were psychic kids?” he pointed out. “From cursed families.”

Sam scrubbed at the back of his neck tiredly. “Yeah. Well. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

His gaze flitted back to the newspaper picture of Alyssa Medina’s murdered parents displayed on his computer screen. “Sins of the fathers…” he muttered. “We’re all cursed.”

Dean sat up straighter, brow furrowing. “What’s that?”

Sam’s attention snapped back to his brother. “Huh?” he said.

“Sins of the fathers,” Dean repeated.

“The family curse,” Sam said. “We’re all supposedly cursed for some terrible thing one of our ancestors did. I explained that to you, right?”

“No,” Dean said, before instantly adding, “Yes. I mean – well, yeah, you explained about the family curse, but you didn’t use those exact words.”

“Sins of the fathers?”

Dean nodded slightly, fingers sliding unconsciously to the amulet around his neck, eyes distant. Remembering. “Someone’s said that to me before.”

Sam eyed Dean’s toying with the amulet before agreeing. “Sure. Ryan Grayson.”

Dean’s focus shifted back to the present, to his brother. “He was a –”

“Soldier.”

Confusion clouded Dean’s features, and his fingers closed tightly around the little gold charm. “Not a –” he paused, as if embarrassed to ask, “not a – a cowboy?”

Sam just looked at him. “Cowboy?” he repeated, inclining his head to one side. “No. Don’t meet too many of those in our line of work.”

Dean grit his teeth in frustration, banging his head back down against the pillow angrily. “Stupid raggedy-ass memory!” he cursed. “I’m never gonna get it back!”

“Dean –”

“I need some sleep. That’s all. I just need some sleep.”

Sam turned his attention back to the laptop when Dean turned onto his side and closed his eyes, a surefire sign that he was done talking.

Sam sighed, picking up where he’d left off his fruitless research, even dipping into some of those old schoolfriend network sites in the hopes of turning up something – anything – on the Medinas.

But he found precisely nothing.

Nada.

Zipola.

He sighed, placing his chin in the palm of his hand and glancing over at Dean, whose breathing had evened out, announcing that he’d reached the Land of Nod without incident.

Sam fought the urge to go cover him with a blanket, figuring if Dean woke up with Sam hovering over him in full-on Mother Hen Mode he’d never hear the end of it.

So he turned back to the computer again, barely even touching the keys before Dean began to shift restlessly on the bed, moaning softly and distracting Sam’s attention back toward his brother.

Sam stood, cautiously approaching Dean’s bed, trying not to wake him. What was that? His lips were moving and the moaning wasn’t – it wasn’t just moaning. It was – it was tuneful. Dean wasn’t moaning: he was singing. Dean was singing in his sleep!

Sam leant down closer to his brother, trying to catch the mumbled words issuing from his barely-parted lips. It was the same tune he’d been humming all afternoon, but now there were definitely lyrics. Sam just couldn’t make out what they were.

Suddenly Dean’s singing stopped, and Sam straightened, retreating a step as his brother became agitated, head thrown from side to side, eyes doing a crazy tango beneath his eyelids.

“No, no please!” Dean muttered, voice so full of complete and utter anguish that Sam almost reached out a hand to shake him awake. “Please! Where is she? Where is she? It’s – it’s all burning. It’s all burning! Do something! Please do something! She’s in there and it’s burning! Where is she?”

Sam bit his lip, unaccustomed to the almost childlike look of terror on his brother’s face. “Dean –”

Sam jumped back another step as Dean suddenly jerked bolt upright, eyes wide and staring up at Sam as if he was the only other person on the planet, chest heaving as he tried to suck in air.

“Sammy?”

Sam approached his brother once more, hand held out toward him. “It’s okay, Dean,” he said softly. “You’re okay. You’re safe.” He sat down gingerly on the edge of Dean’s bed, a little unnerved by the way Dean was staring at him, barely blinking. “Dean? You with me?”

Dean continued to gaze at him, short, hard breaths slowing slightly, but fear and disorientation still obvious in the unnatural size of his unblinking eyes.

“You were singing in your sleep,” Sam told him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You were singing that song again.”

Dean blinked just once, finally seeming to focus on his brother. “I think – I think Mom used to sing that song to me…”

Undetermined location

The dark red substance swirled in the ornate bronze chalice, one long slender finger stirring at the contents as they began to recede, revealing only blackness in its truest form.

“You’re right of course,” the woman’s voice broke the unearthly silence. “Yes. He’s remembering too much… I see that now. The memory – I know – the memories you wanted him to forget – and more. They’re coming back to him. Yes, yes I understand. But…it would be easier just to wipe his mind completely. Yes, it will be simple. I can do it. Trust me. It will be done, fear not.”

The long finger withdrew slowly from the bowl, languidly drawn across ruby red lips and a lazily curled tongue. She sighed contentedly.

“By the time I’m finished with Dean Winchester,” she said, licking the last exquisite drops of blood from her full lower lip, “he won’t even be able to tie his own shoelaces…”

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The Winchester Chronicles